With the first day of the Minnesota fishing opener out of the way we can now sit back and relax... not! The fishing has only begun and its time to have more fun out there!

So, how did everyone's first day of opener go?

I spent some time in the Chisago area yesterday morning with my old man and we stumbled across a nice pod of shallow water walleye. We threw the new 2" Mister Twister Mino, the 2.5" Gulp minnows and the 2" Berkley Power Minnows at them on 1/16oz or 1/32oz jigs. They definitely preferred something smaller in profile that fell slow.

Any sort of rocky or gravel areas were key if available, or else a mix of weeds kicked out a few fish too. Depths no deeper than 5 feet.

Fished from about 6:30am-11am and boated a total of 17 walleye with the biggest coming in at a hair under 25-inches. Here's a couple pictures...





Not too many females mixed in, a lot of skinnier males for the most part. Also noticed that you sorted through a bunch of smaller bass in all the spots that we landed walleye.

As for bonus fish we also landed a couple nice gills and about a 4 pound bass. The slack water on the points produced a lot of crappies too, but most were 7-9 inches and not a single walleye came from an area where there was an influx of crappies so those spots were short lived.

We tried throwing cranks at a few of the fish but no takers, not even a slimy pike. Small-profiled plastic minnows were the ticket. Tie on a small white tubes if you want panfish

We made it off the lake before the weather came through, started to rain on the way home

Hope everyone had a safe and fun first day of fishing! Good luck the rest of the weekend and the rest of the season!

Let's see some pics and reports!

Nice fish Dude!!!!

Nice fish Matt. Thanks for the report.

I don't know where Matt was fishing (and WAY TO GO Matt!!!) but I heard they were popping the eyes pretty good on South Center in about 5' of water. Bobber fishing was working better than lindy rigging. I bet a guy could almost fish like he was fishing for crappies.

Nice eye! All we hit on Forest were a few pike and bass on gulp minnows this weekend. I tried rigging a bit with no luck.

I may head east to Green or Center next time out. Even with this cold weather there were a few wave runners out and it will only get busier with the skiers soon.

I agree after running lindy's and running raps in the shallows all morning with no luck we stopped to take a break in one of the crappie area's. I saw about a 26" Walleye on opener around 10am caught in the boat next to me. They were bobber fishing for crappies on south center in about 5' of water.

Nice fish Matt. Thanks for the report.

Nice one, Matty.

We fished a East Central lake Saturday morning. Caught a few walleyes, had a few for the pan, and got out of there before the wet came. It was nice to be out.

Nice fish Matt, we were on N. Center and found a few fish, but nothing of any size like you.

We were on the Goose Lake chain and managed 1 Walleye that was 22" caught it in 3' of water using slip bobber, flu flu jig tipped with a leech. Other than that we caught alot of LM Bass, some sunnies and crappies, wish the weather would of been better.