After spending most of the winter in the southern U.S., it’s been really nice to be home the past few weeks to enjoy the awesome early season fishing opportunities that we have across the Sunset Country region. It’s the best time of year as our lakes start to warm up and we are presented with many good fishing options. If you like to be in the outdoors, we have plenty to look forward to in the coming months.
While I fish for all species and simply love being on the water, bass are my favourite fish to catch. I caught the bug for competitive fishing when I was a kid and I still love it all these years later. I’m constantly looking for new ways to catch them as well as little tricks to help get an extra bite or two. The early season bass fishing is excellent because they don’t eat a lot during the winter so when things open up in the spring, they are hungry and eager to bite. I got in a few really good bass trips when I first got home in mid-May, catching a bunch of smallmouths on Ned rigs, small swimbaits and marabou jigs.
Across the region, bass are spawning now so I like to give them a little break while they go through that process. The male bass make nests in shallow water that they guard for a couple of weeks before they move on to their summer locations. The reason we have a catch and release bass season in the spring is to protect them while they go through this process. The season opens July 1 and then the tournament schedule will fire up across the region.
After I got my bass fix out of the way, most of my focus turned to walleye fishing. I spent several days fishing on Lake of the Woods and even went up north to the English River for a day, which was fun. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. I really enjoy the walleye fishing early in the season because most of the fish are in shallow water, under ten feet. Over the past few weeks, I’ve caught hundreds of walleyes and I don’t think any of them have come from more than ten feet of water.
I like to fish small coves and bays, especially if a little bit of wind is pushing warmer surface water into them. A lot of the fish that I’ve been catching have been in two to six feet of water, which sounds unusual but, I promise you, more walleyes are in that shallow water than you can imagine. I like to cast a Ned rig that consists of a 3/16 oz Nedster jig and a Z-Man TicklerZ into these areas, especially if I know where they are. If I’m in search mode and want to cover some water, I’ll go with a ¼ oz Smeltinator jig tipped with a Z-Man 3” SwimmerZ swimbait. This combo will catch walleyes on all waters across the region.
Crappie fishing gets really good this time of year as they move up shallow to spawn around cover like pencil reeds, trees in the water and even beaver huts. Casting a small jig and plastic rigged up a foot or two below a float around these areas is the best way to catch them. If you have a good pair of polarized sunglasses, you can often sneak around in the shallows with your trolling motor and actually see the crappies before fishing. They stay up in the shallows for a few weeks before dispersing to main basin weed beds for the summer.
Lake trout are one of the unique species that we have across the region and the early season is prime time to catch trout. I had a friend up visiting Lake of the Woods from Oklahoma last week and he mentioned that he had never caught a lake trout but wanted to give it a try. We spent a few hours chasing them around and caught several including a few nice ones over ten pounds. They were starting to get out a little bit deeper in the 40-50 foot of water range. We caught these on a Smeltinator jig tipped with a Jerk ShadZ.
I try to get up to fish the English River a few days every year and they are always some of my favourite days because I love the adventure of exploring new water where there isn’t much mapping and most of the fish have never seen a lure before. I had a fun day catching walleyes with some nice pike and smallmouth mixed in as well.
I’m back on the road south this week, fishing a Bassmaster tournament at Wheeler Lake, Alabama. It’s a lake that I fished a couple of times in my early years fishing in the U.S. so I have some familiarity with it. I’m not looking forward to the brutal heat we’re going to be hit with but hopefully I can find some nice bass and have a good event. Enjoy that great fishing across Sunset Country everybody.
