The fish are on the stringer. That's the best part for me. Having those fins finning and I tethered them. But the osprey overhead and the redwing blackbirds didn't hurt. The sounds of the loons letting loose and reverbing around the lakeshore at no extra charge is just the cherry on top of my fishing Sunday.

Spring air over the water no matter the land temp is crisp. It blew a walleye chop out of the west and I sat in it and drank coffee and hooked into some bottom eye shiners. They came up almost too easy this morning.

A lead head jig tipped with fatheads that during January produced nothing from under the ice and today the Walters, those same fickle winter Walters chomped on my minnows. What a difference a few months makes and that the opener has come and the fish cooperate and the wind is agreeing and it's not snowing and I have had the good fortune to be able to sit here and fish, but not just fish, but to catch fish.

Toss in that the boat doesn't leak or my fresh line never tangled or the fish finder didn't go into an electronic failure or the anchor in too strong a wind wouldn't hold. Not one thing to cuss or complain about.

I'm not on the holy grail of walleye water so it was not an open water boat show. Just one other guy at the public access and I don't even know where his boat is. The leaves on the trees are just as sparse but hinting of a budding to come forth.

Mallard Ducks quack and geese seem almost friendly fluting over by some cattails that a beaver put his feed bed by last fall. Today you could catch fifty walleyes on a morning like this before eight o'clock in the bait bucket morning. I'm not wasting my minnows on catch and release so it's up anchor and out of here for today.

I load up; just about fished tying everything down when in pulls another rig. One head with a twins cap asks how the fishing was so not only did I tell the two of them how it was, I showed them what I had on ice.

They wanted the spot.

So I said listen for the loons next to the geese over by some blackbirds on top of some choppy water next to a dried up beaver bed in the coolest air on the lake. But fellows, that spot may be gone because it was here about two hours ago and I'm not sure it's still there just the same way in the same place. Besides you guys you know how finicky walleye can be when they bite.

The Trout Whisperer