Kabetogama Opener

I’ll be up on Kab for the opener this year for my first time. Can anyone provide advice on what I should have in my tackle box? What’s native in the lake that the walleyes will be feeding on? I’m assuming fish will be shallow, but then again spring started in February so that may not be true this year.

Jigs – sizes/colors?
Snells – spinners or just plain hooks?
Crank baits – trolled or tossed to the shallows that early in the season? Colors?
Do plastics like Moxies work in this lake?
Looks like slip bobbers are popular (I’ll do it, but not my favorite!)

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Most of the threads I have been reading are June/July advice. Haven’t seen much early season.

Fish the Kabetogama end early in the year. Jig & minnow works most of the time. Be careful if trolling shallow if you don’t know the lake, lots of rocks will jump out and bite you. Your resort will give you a couple of spots to start on.

Have fun!!

If the past two openers is any indication, bring lots of handwarmers and a good rain jacket.

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I go up second week of the year and mostly cast/troll crankbaits, do some jig fishing but not near as much. Colors on jigs, seems gold and/or chartreuse are always winners, I’ve only tried live bait a couple times, pretty much always use plastics on jigs.

If I had to pick three color patterns on my cranks I’d have firetiger, Perch and bleeding hot olive. I take way too many with me, but for trolling I most often run tail dancers or shad raps and casting husky jerks and x raps. As a wild card I would be sure to go up with a x rap or two in the most outlandish color you can find, smallmouth will love it. My best bait last year was a hot pink #10 x-rap, it actually caught my biggest walleye of the week too. Last cast on the last evening I was robbed of that lure by a pike, though it was about ready to be retired anyway.
I haven’t slip bobber fished too much up there, but my 4 y.o. son is coming this year so will probably get some practice in it.

If you look in the net you can see that pink x rap.

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Thanks for all the advice. I’m am more concerned about the rocks than the cold. Have brushed 6″ of snow off my boat before to launch in on the lake. Way better fishing than when it’s 90F+.

@poomunk, thanks for the great details! I have lots of cranks from trolling at LOTW. Will make sure they are along with me. Do you have any plastics that you have found work well? I was going to pick up some Moxies as I have heard good things about them on here on IDO. Otherwise I have not been very successful with plastics, but would love to find one that works. Especially one that will perform as well as frozen shiners on LOTW. They are like trying to keep jello on your hook!

BTW: Front platform, windshield, radio, carpet color, I think we may have the same boat.

Its a lund pro sport (the boat), 2001 model.

I’ve used the moxies and b fish paddle tails to some success, jig fishing still isn’t my confidence tactic so I am pretty quick to give up on it. I’ve only got b fish plastics so if I’m using plastics it’s those.

Always my favorite trip of the year going up there, I wish I had the time to go more than once a year.

Be putting in on Monday the 15th May and staying till Sat the 20th.
Be hanging out across from the Ash River launch.
Anyone else up for the weekdays?

Same dates here, Shelter Bay. Camped there the same week in 2015. I huddled in the tent all night hoping a tree didn’t come down on me and left early because snow was predicted. Ran back to Ash River getting pelted by ice pellets. Stung the face like the dickens.

We have been fishing the west end usually one week either side of Memorial Day. We almost exclusively fish shallow water with jigs or Lindy’s or split shot hook combos with live bait. Colors of the jigs are all over the place but white/pink has been doing well along with blue/chart clown. White, pink, black are all good but blue too, I’ve even done well on purple.

up on Sat and leave Sun. Returning Wed through Sun the following. Game plan for Sat check current areas, then off to NW side of lake,weather permitting, continuing to move East as necessary. 1st break, shallow to shore with wind at my back if it makes sense. Light plastics and pref. no live bait.

So, how did everyone do over the opener? Will be watching the area reports closely in preparation for our June trip.

Had really spotty cell service while we were up there.
fishing was a lot tougher this year but working hard
We were able to catch way more fish than we could eat.
Wide variety of keep able fish. Walleye, sauger northerns smallies and jumbo perch up to 13s
we fished in 17 – 35 fow and time of day at a depth really mattered.
brought home more fish than ever.
worked a lot of top and bottoms of breaklines.
abought 6 pounds of fillets in total variety of species.
we had 2 generous fish fries while we were camping on the island.
the missing fish were the usual throwbacks in the 23 -26 inch walleye,
our biggest was a 21 on Friday off Cuculus island
fished all; over the eastern half of the lake and up the ash river.
the rock markers were not in up the river which can be devastating if you don’t know about those ones midstream that are there.
We thought the weather was actually pretty good for early season other than
the wind being from the east a lot. mid 40’s at night instead of 30s.
one day of rain is typical on this trip, but my boat is rigged for this trip.

I don’t have much experience on this lake, but felt fishing was poor. Boats were scattered everywhere and saw very few fish boated. Most people we talked to said fishing was tough.

Gold jigs with rainbows were the only thing that worked consistently for us. Biggest was 23″. Nice sized perch and sauger. Caught fish, but we drove past many lakes that would have produced better than Kab did this visit. Still happy we went.

Does everybody think the Walleyes have spawned?

Does everybody think the Walleyes have spawned?

for sure,
hence the lack of bigger females,
we were catching mostly eater size males

Yes, we were finding most of the fish in places called out for early June on the Hotspots maps.