My friend and I enjoyed a nice day on a metro lake. We were pleasantly surprised by a nice batch of walleyes and bluegills. We arrived at the lake early and started corking right away. We worked the steep breaks around the shoreline. The magic depth was between 10-12 feet where the steep break slows down and the depth levels out a bit and the contour lines aren’t as sharp.
We would fish a spot for 10-15 minutes and then we would move about 50 yards and start over. If we caught one or two we would hang out a little longer but never spent too much time in one spot. We were using a slip bobber with a split shot and colored hook. The colors that worked for us were orange and chart/yellow. The key was keeping it close to the bottom (12-18”). The bait of choice was jumbo leeches. We also had shiners but they were not producing like the leeches. We ended up keeping 8 walleyes ranging from 14” to 19.5”.
It was cloudy until about 9:30 and the walleyes cooperated until that time. After the sun came out I decided to head to a spot that produced some nice bluegills earlier this year. That was a very good decision as we pulled about two dozen gills in the 8-9” range. All you needed was a small chuck of worm on a 1/32 oz. jig head. They were on fire and inhaling the bait. There were some nice ones mixed in too. We released about a dozen fish pushing the 10” range. It was nice to see the quality fish on this metro lake.
We were off the water by noon and had a nice fish fry Saturday night. You couldn’t beat the weather this weekend. Hopefully the weather will hold for a trip to Mille Lacs next weekend.
