Well, on Friday afternoon I packed up the gear to go check out one of my shore spots. I wanted to see how the shiner run from Lake of the Woods/Rainy Lake was going. It started a few weeks ago, but has yet to peak. Here on Rainy River, the walleye/bass and pike feast heavy on shiners during the initial start of the shiner run. I get excited, because I know whats in store for the remainder of the softwater season. At first, its starts with smaller fish relocating for winter, then as the shiner run/gorging increases, so do the numbers, and size of the travelling walleyes. So my goal on Friday was to not only locate fish, but to see what they would bite. Sounds easy right? Shiners, DU'H! Lol, well it isn't THAT easy when the fish are gorging. More often then not, you need to locate the pods of baitfish, then search the edges with baits/lures that stick out amongst the pods. Sometimes its a size thing, bigger or smaller. Sometimes it's a color thing, totally opposing a shiner, or sometimes you need to match the hatch (but that doesn't happen often). Sometimes you can just jig or deadstick live bait in 20-30FOW. Anyhow, I got the timing of the bite down and found some productive tactics. Towards the end of the day I also tried to deadstick large minnows before I took the kids out. As sometimes it's the way THEY prefer to fish! I caught a bunch of good walleyes that day, and a few little pike. Biggest walleye of the day was only 25" though. This time of year, were looking for 30" PLUS!
-wind was cool, 20km/h from the south, southeast.
-water temps 42 degrees, clarity very good for the river, about 6ft.
Saturday rolls around and I tell the kids the plan is to hit the spot by 430 pm. That gives us half hour to set up and be ready for a bite that, if I'm correct, will start around 5pm. The kids are excited as we gear up. All the kids talk about whos gonna catch fish, whos gonna get the biggest etc. So funny to hear the friendly banter of my kids, ranging in age from 7-12 years old. They sound like seasoned veterans (at this point they actually are).
So, water temps today are rising slightly, about 46 degrees. It's much warmer, about 15 above, and barely a lick of wind. It begins overcast, but the sun quickly makes it presence felt in the way of clear blue skies.
The first 20 minutes or so, no bites. But not to worry, I did my homework almost to perfection on this day. I show the kids some targets to cast to for underwater structure in 15-30 FOW, and show them the retrieve speeds etc.
Tap tap THUD! Set the hook and the fight is on. I get the first of many small walleye. Look at my watch, 5:20 pm, almost clockwork precision, lol.
About 30 seconds later, I feel like Bill Murray.
Now the kids are getting bit! But its funny, the shiners push the shore, in broad daylight with sunny skies. The walleye are now in 4FOW, hugging shore and feeding heavily.
Cont'd
