Chilly Opener in Otter Tail Lakes Country
By Ross Hagemeister, meisterguideservice.com
The Minnesota Fishing Opener was dominated, once again, by terrible weather. It hadn’t snowed in Otter Tail Lakes Country for over a month…….until Saturday! The fishing was difficult (for a lot of anglers). It’s not easy to feel a soft walleye bite when your hand is too cold to feel the rod—and cold rain drops pelting your eyeballs and face are distracting too. It was brutal. Why do it? Most of us were hungry–to get out of the house and to eat a tasty piece of walleye! It was a perfect MN fishing opener,actually. Every time a rain drop landed in my eye or a snowflake blew past my face I knew I was home. I couldn’t get cold enough. Being numb was a good thing this weekend—it was a way for those who chose to fish, to be distracted and to feel free and normal. That’s the good of fishing.
Currently, the water temps are in the upper 40’s and low 50’s depending on the lake. Because lake water temps have dropped 5-10 degrees in the past 5 days, the shiner spawn has stalled. Lake shiners control the destiny of walleye and walleye angling in early weeks of the fishing season every year, on most Otter Tail County Lakes. Shallow water and current areas, where shiners spawn, are subject to rapid warming and cooling in early May. A short 2 day front that produces clouds, rain, and wind might send shiners back out to staging areas on the main lake—and the walleye go with them. That being said, shifting weather patterns and temperature changes can wreck any good fishing pattern early in the season. Once water temps reach the 60 degree mark, shiners and predator species alike are less influenced by water temp changes. The next week or two will be challenging and inconsistent but then patterns with become easier to track as June approaches. For now, be prepared to chase walleye around the lakes. The best solutions to consistent early season walleye fishing is to stay on smaller lakes where the fish simply don’t have very far to go—it takes less time to find fish if there’s not too much lake to look over.
Keep jigging rods handy. Try and have a rod tied with a 1/16 oz jig, and the other should have a 1/8 or 3/16 oz jig. This enables you to jig fish shallow areas with the lighter jig and then fish the drop off zone with the heavier selection. I also keep shallow and deep live bait rigging sets. I like to have one rig tied with a 1/4 oz Lindy/slip weight and a 5 foot snell that’s applicable in 5-10 feet of water; and the next with a 1/2 oz slip sinker to cover 10-20 feet. I anticipate changes every time I fish in May. Be sure and have shiner minnows, leeches, and some crawlers along this time of the year. Shiners should do the trick, but every now and then there’s a lake where the walleye need a crawler or leech. Keep moving the boat around this week—fishing will be challenging until the water warms and stays warm.
Good luck fishing Otter Tail Lakes Country this week and don’t forget to clean, drain, and dry when you take your boat out of the lake!