Alexandria opener: friends + wind + rain = eyes

Opener has come and gone, and the walleye bite is in full swing in western Minnesota. I spent this opener as I have spent the last eight: with close friends on a smaller lake south of Alexandria. Although the wind was persistent and the rain was an unwelcome guest, we found ways to keep the eyes coming to the net.

We started this season as we always do: cranking the shallows starting at 12:00:01 am. My boat pulled a blend of shallow shad raps (firetiger and hot steel) and husky jerks (firetiger) and had 9 eyes between 12:01 and 2 am. Key locations for us were sand-to-weed transitions and inside weed edges in 7-9 fow. The guys who stayed on shore had a few smaller fish corking with leeches, but a more aggressive crankbait pattern seemed dominant on this opening night. We were running baits between 125 and 175 feet back, and 1.7 mph seemed to provide the best action. Here are a few of my boat’s keepers that went perfectly with scrambled eggs and peppers on Saturday morning.

The daylight bite on Saturday was not as consistent as the nigttime cranking action, but we were still able to keep the net wet. We took fish by cranking deeper out onto the weed flats (targeting 10-14 fow) and by vertical jigging sand points in 16-20 fow with 1/4 oz BFT precision heads (purple pearl) and big fatheads. For a change of pace, we did some snap jigging over an expansive flat with scattered emerging weeds using 1/4 and 3/8 oz BFT heads, oystershell paddletails and some Lindy munchie tails. We had fun wrestling with some hammer handles, accidental LM bass, and smaller eyes during the afternoon, while we waited for the sun to fall below the horizon and the cranking to begin in earnest. Our saturday night cranking bite started slowly, with one good fish at dusk (firetiger SSR5), and then nothing until midnight….waiting the fish out gave us another nice batch of eyes between 12 and 1:30, then off to bed for a much needed rest.

Opener is a celebration of everything that makes fishing so wonderful: close friends and family, kids and grandkids running along the beach, and netting fish for the guy who used to net them for you when you were a much younger man. This last photo features the hosts of this weekend, Jim on the left who is my co-worker and close friend, and his dad John who has been taking his sons on opening weekend trips for around 30 years. Jim and John adopted me into their traditional opening weekend trip almost 10 years ago, and it has become my favorite trip of the year. Thanks guys, looking forward to opener ’07!