Red, White & a Good Bite

By Cody Hill of CHill Guide Service

Memorial Day weekend brought warmer temperatures and strong winds that helped increase the water temps. Right now it seems like everything is swimming together and you don’t know what will bite next. 

It was fun this past weekend having friends up from Ice Fishing Minnesota.  We hit local lakes for two days of fishing even in the gale force winds.  Simple presentations like a jig and minnow or a simple lindy rig were our top presentations because fish were active but they didn’t want to necessarily work hard to feed.  Slow and steady won for getting fish into the boat.  If you set the hook the moment you felt the bite the odds were not in your favor.

Walleyes

Walleyes were everywhere from 12 feet down to 30 feet.  Breaks and weed lines produced most of our fish and if you could find a weed line with a sharp break or a point, those spots produced the best results.  Jigs tipped with a minnow was the best combination in our boat. A black Northland Tungsten jig tipped with a minnow was our winning presentation.  Fish seemed very skittish of the boat so casting and slowly dragging it back to the boat worked well.  Casting a simple lindy rig tipped with a minnow and slowly dragging it back to the boat helped turn inactive fish into active fish. However, you needed to give them a few seconds before setting the hook.

Crappies

Crappies are nearing spawn and were an absolute blast to get into this weekend. At one point I shut the Livescope off because it didn’t matter where you casted.  Pitching a 1/32 oz hair jig tipped with a minnow worked best. Slowly bringing it back to the boat through cabbage produced our largest crappies.  Since the females were noticeably full of eggs so they were all returned back to finish spawning.  10-15 feet of water produced our largest crappies with smaller crappies being in the 6-8 foot range.  Our sweet spot was 13 feet of water with cabbage weeds that were 2-4 feet tall.  We anchored between a few clumps and fan casted as the fish moved from weed clump to weed clump.

With warmer temperatures, fishing will only be getting better. Do not delay if interested in booking a trip contact Cody today to book a trip that will 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲!

ᴄʜɪʟʟɢᴜɪᴅᴇꜱᴇʀᴠɪᴄᴇ.ᴄᴏᴍ |218-443-3813