The walleye fishing season officially closes on inland Minnesota lakes on the last weekend in February. For most walleye anglers, this leaves an agonizing 75 day gap in the walleye fishing schedule. Fortunately, there are some options for those who wish to make a drive to one of a few fisheries that lay on state or national borders. For us, this means a relatively short 100 mile drive to the river that forms a major portion of the border between the United States and Canada. Since Junior had no classes today, I decided to take a day off and we made the trek north to avoid the weekend crowds. See the rest of A Rainy River Walleye Fishing Retreat →
Those who follow tournament walleye fishing have certainly heard the name Pete Harsh. He has been at it since 1983 and since that time has amassed several tournament wins and the prestigious 2008 FLW Walleye Angler of the Year. He recently joined Team Evinrude and I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to present Pete with some questions. What follows are Pete’s responses to a set of questions I sent to him for consideration: See the rest of A Few Questions for Pete Harsh – 2008 FLW Walleye Angler of the Year →
For anyone interested… this is how you get kids excited about fishing. Last month I received a message in my inbox from Wendy Dallmann, a physical education teacher from Prairie Farm High School in Wisconsin. I do a bit of drawing and Wendy found some of my work on another web site that I set up for that purpose. The drawing is your standard “Walleye Going After Jig” image and she wanted to know if she could use it for a sweatshirt design for an ice fishing competition. See the rest of The Secret to Getting Kids Excited About Fishing →
Once again a bill has been introduced in the Minnesota House of representatives which would modify current wording to allow anglers to use two lines to take fish. Currently, anglers are only allowed a single line except when ice fishing at which time two lines are allowed. This has, of course, set off all sorts of controversy in certain circles with proponents pointing to our friends to the east and west as examples of the multi-line rule, while those opposed feel that it will only harm the excellent fishing we currently enjoy in the state of Minnesota.
I have to admit that See the rest of The Controversial “Two Line” Proposal for Minnesota Fishing. →
Look at this pile of stuff. And it’s not even scratching the surface! Jigs, crankbaits, rods, slip bobbers, the works. I don’t even want to know what I’ve spent on this stuff, because it’s irrelevant. We use all of it at one time or another. The real curse is that we continue to plot ways to add new stuff to the pile. Take our latest quest for example…
See the rest of The Infamous Walleye Tackle Collection →
A friend of mine sent these shots a fish house with the title “Ice Fishing Minnesota Style”. While I would love to think that this is the case, this house could very well have been built anywhere they fish through frozen water. So I will simply leave it open for the enjoyment of any of you who venture out into sub-zero temps in pursuit of your favorite fish. If you recognize the house, let me know… this really is a nice way to go!
Staying with the theme of ice fishing, I ran across an article by a gentleman named Dave Mull. Dave has been the editor of Great Lakes Angler magazine and writes the occasional article on a newer site called Earth Sports. Check out the site if you get a chance. Anyway, he discussed a fishing gizmo called the “Whip-up”, a little twist on the standard tip-up walleye and other ice fishermen use when covering multiple holes. Check out the article Ice Fishing with Whip-ups and let me know what you think. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the photos… drop me a line if you have an ice fishing palace of your own you would like to share!
See the rest of Walleye Fishing in Style →
I made the annual trek to Taber’s Bait yesterday to sign up for the 2011 walleye league. As one of the perks of finishing in the top two the previous season, we were offered the opportunity to fish in Cabela’s National Team Championship walleye tournament on the Bays De Noc on upper Lake Michigan. 250 boats, combined with the Master Walleye Circuit (another 200 boats) makes this one massive tournament. The thought of competing against a collection of teams who do this sort of thing all season long was a bit daunting at first. But there’s no way I would pass up a chance to make a nice family vacation out of a trip to Michigan’s upper peninsula, and throw in a little fishing on one of the best walleye fisheries on the planet.
So now Junior and I have a bit of homework to do. We are going to have a few options for catching fish over there and one of them will be pulling cranks under planer boards. Now we’ve pulled our share of crankbaits, but we’ve never fished using planer boards. So there will probably be some diabolical experiments taking place on lake Bemidji this summer involving crankbaits and planer boards. Of course, we could go through all of that work and find out that the hot bait is crawlers on a rig, but I guess we’ll have to cover every angle. If any of you readers out there have any tips to share… we’re all ears.
To be quite honest… I’ll consider it a victory if we can weigh a few fish. I’ll be doing my homework over the course of the summer and will provide every little tidbit I can as we fish our way through league this year. So stay tuned!
I’ve been toying with this goofy idea for a while. And when the lakes are frozen the brain of the walleye fisherman does some very strange things. I write this blog for fun and wanted to add something fun that could include readers and other bloggers. So why not have a little contest? The Minnesota bass guys do it, so why not walleye guys?
The Pitch
Starting on the Minnesota walleye opener, May 14, 2011 the great WalleyePalooza will commence (not terribly original, but “Walleye Fishing Contest” sounded worse). The ultimate online bragging board for the average Joe Schmoe walleye angler. We love to post pictures, techniques and tips, so why not put it all together in one place and keep a running tab on the antics of the walleye fishing community?
Just comment on this post or shoot me an email at walleyeguy@walleyeguyblog.com. Give me your name, nickname or blog name and I’ll register you as a participant. Anglers can join any time before or during the season. The contest will close on November 5 (the sacred Minnesota Firearms Deer Hunting Opener), and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter. The prize? Why, perpetual internet fame, an honored corner in the pages of the WalleyeGuy Blog, the adoration of the walleye fishing masses, bragging rights. In other words… not a damn thing.
The Rules
Now that I have you whipped into a competitive frenzy… You can register with me any time… starting today. But starting on May 14 (Minnesota’s walleye opener) I will begin accepting your fish (must be caught on or after May 14). Send me an email with details on the fish you caught. Include the following:
- Length of Fish
- When you caught it
- Where you caught it
- (optional) A picture of the fish… or you… or you and the fish… or a police sketch of the fish
The fish must be at least 20 inches long.
If you had the fish weighed on a quality scale, then send me the weight, otherwise I will use the Walleye Central Fish Weight Calculator as our official weight calculator.
Everyone is on the honor system. (Contrary to popular myth, fishermen are a very honest lot).
Everyone is welcome. You don’t have to be from Minnesota. You don’t have to catch the fish in Minnesota.
I will keep track of each competitor’s weight total. The final total will be based upon a six fish limit. You can cull. If you’ve sent me six fish and catch a seventh fish better than all of them, I will throw out the low and add the big one. Pretty simple.
I’m throwing this idea out there now because I know that there are going to be some little things that I didn’t think of. It’s cold up here in Northern Minnesota and brain cells don’t work properly at sub-zero. If you want to keep up with progress or changes to the contest, just subscribe to this blog over there in the upper-left corner.
So what do you say? Add a comment or give me a shout. This thing is going to be on top of us in four short months. There’s no time to waste!
With the weather stabilizing a bit up here we decided to take a little trek up to the “Walleye Factory”. Lake of the Woods is only about a 90 minute drive from home, so we got up early Saturday morning and made the drive north. With the crazy winter weather we had last week the reports were very sketchy. But with a week of cold stable weather the news was getting a little better and made our decision to head up a bit easier.
We finally had a free day this weekend so Junior and I gathered up all of the fishing stuff and headed out for an afternoon of fishing on Lake Bemidji.
It took a little time to get everything sorted out and located, but the good news is that the auger started, there was propane left in the tank we use with the “Mr. Heater”, and there was enough juice left in one of the four Vexilar batteries. We got all the old line stripped off the reels, bought a few new jigs, loaded up on minnows and headed out to the lake. Unfortunatley, that was pretty much the end of the action for the afternoon.
We figured that we would take a shot at a little bar in the southeast part of the lake. There’s a little hump at the north end that comes up to about 10 feet. We pulled up on the north end of that hump and drilled a few holes until we were in about 20 feet. Our shelter is a two-person Fishtrap Voyager that sets up pretty quick. We poked a couple more holes in the ice, popped up the shelter and got the rods set up. It wasn’t too long before Junior had a perch on the line… nothing massive, but a hopeful sign. We sat and watched the Vexilar looking for the tell-tale signal at the bottom that would announce the arrival of another fish. On two occasions we actually did have visitors, but we couldn’t entice the fish to bite.
So our first outing of the season ended an hour or so after sunset with no walleye action to report. It was good to get out anyway and make sure all of the equipment was working properly. The dogs got to run around on the ice and take a long nap in the back of the shelter. Hopefully the next trek will include a few fish!
