Bill Marchel: Opener sure was wet, but fishing wasn't wild

GULL LAKE NEAR NISSWA — When preparing for an opening-day fishing foray, it's usually a good idea to buy your live bait in advance.

There are reasons for such forethought. Sometimes, bait shops sell out early, especially during a busy weekend like this, the fishing opener. Other times, an early-rising angler might find a "closed" sign hanging on the bait shop door.

So, being a smart angler, I purchased three-dozen shiner minnows Friday afternoon, just in case.

"Will these stay alive overnight in this bag if I put them in refrigerator?" I asked the clerk.

"There is only enough oxygen for about four hours," the guy said.

Roughly 12 hours later I loaded my fishing gear -- including a pail containing three-dozen belly-up minnows -- into my truck and drove to a restaurant to meet my fishing partner.

"We'll need to stop and get some 'live' bait on the way to the lake," I said as we ate breakfast.

It was about 7:30 a.m. when we launched my friend's boat. Gull Lake is, of course, a popular fishing destination, so it was no surprise the boat landing was quite busy. The weather was tolerable: cloudy with a light breeze from the east, and the temperature was 45 degrees. Rain was in the forecast so my friend and I suited up with the appropriate garb.

Our first stop was a long underwater finger that protruded into the lake from a steep, high bank. We dragged Lindy rigs and shiner minnows along and over the point in a variety of depths. Fishless after a half hour, we moved on.

As we motored here and there, we used the latest fishing electronics to monitor likely fish-holding locations. Occasionally we would drop the trolling motor and backtroll over the most promising locations.

By 11 a.m. we had yet to boat a walleye, so we checked a sheltered bay hoping to find a few crappies. The sky had darkened, and a light rain had begun to fall. Other anglers had had the same crappie-catching idea, but apparently the bay was void of hungry fish.

At close to noon the fish-finder finally was able to detect what appeared to be a few scattered walleyes along a breakline in roughly 16 feet of water. We trolled back and forth, and presented the fish with a variety of baits and lures.

It was in this same spot one year ago that I had hauled in what I initially thought was a gob of weeds, but ultimately turned out to be a landing net. A rare catch, yes, but not the end of the story. In the net was a dead northern pike.

Ultimately we avoided being skunked when my friend caught a keeper walleye, just as the rain intensified in early afternoon. The fish hit a shiner minnow trolled in about 16 feet of water.

Bill Marchel is a wildlife photographer and outdoors columnist. He lives near Brainerd, Minn.