outdoors

Well the weather is heating up and so is the fishing.  We had a great week.  My fishing team won the multispecies event.  Crappies were hitting and we did well on them, our bass and bluegills.
 
The crappies were in 4-6 feet of water and not overly agressive.  You had to slip bobber them, with plain hooks and crappie minnows.  We were missing fish when hooking the minnows thru the lips, but a good trick to use, that worked for us again, is to hook them thru the dorsal fin or tail.  Crappies love em and if they are not staying on the hook, it's up to you to figure out how to improve the odds.  We did and connected with solid hooksets after that little adjustment. 
 
The bluegills are spawning and using the bass beds when they can get them.  The bass are done spawning and putting the feed bags on.  Bass can be caught most any place now and are interested in biting most anything too.  Try plastics on docks, weed edges, mostly shallow, but they are moving to the mid depths already. 

The bluegills and warmouths are spawning in the shallow, 1-2 feet of water on sand and will bite anything near them.  You can get some nice ones right now.  But we released everything to keep the fishing at good levels.
 
Pike have been slower than expected on and off.  But they are still taking spoons and spinners trolled and pitched to good weeds, so don't forget them, that's some awesome fishing. 
 
Good fishing and hope to see ya on the water.
 
Minnesota Fishing Guide.com

The cold nights lowered the water temps on this small area lake to 59-62 degrees and made the pike bite tough.  We picked this lake for the nice average pike and good odds to get each kid a nice fish to wrestle with and get a photo.  It didn't disappoint.
 
Our first 1-1.5 hours was spent figuring out what the fish were willing to bite.  We had 4 anglers and boats, we worked spoons, heavy spinnerbaits, shallow to deep cranks, and finally started to produce a couple fish.  Eventually we found the right combination of baits, boat speeds, location, and started seeing good 5 pound plus northern pike.  
 
We each kept working what we felt most comfortable with.  I worked spinnerbaits in the new cabbage just below the surface.  I ran it at 2-3 mph and the pike would hit it hard.  
 
I like to run this on medium action rods that vibrate with the lure action, that way when it picks up a weed the vibration stops and you reel it in and remove the weeds.  Another great advantage with these lighter rods is that the pike put a great bend in it and the kids and parents love it.  
 
Everyone had a great time and the kids, teachers and parents were all screaming and excited for the fish caught.  We got a bunch of photos and it sounds like this will be an ongoing event.  

It's important to share our fishing with everyone and to introduce others to why we love it.  I am sure we got that across to a lot of kids today.  Thanks to the other guys that helped out. 
 
Minnesota Fishing Guide.com

Another day fishing, Sunday, May 24 and this time on a big Duluth area lake.  We were scouting out new areas while pitching spinnerbaits to shallow weeds and found small pike and had a big muskie follow right to the boat.  Water temps were in the 57-65 degree range, depending on what bay you were in.  Big shallow bays were warmer and reeds held pike. 
 
Some smallies were caught and biting, but it's not a fast bite and they were in their normal locations for spring on shallow wood and rocks.  Pitching right into stumps, trees and rocks was the ticket and you needed to use plastic worms to get them.   
 
The weeds are just starting to grow.  Many people were on their docks and even out fishing walleyes off points and sunken humps.  Jigs and minnows were the number one lures for walleyes.  
  
Yesterday, Saturday, May 23rd, I was out fishing with some great folks yesterday on another area lake.  
 
We found that the crappies had moved into 5-6 feet of water and on spawn in 62 degree water.  The males are very black now, so the spawn's on.  You could pitch or pull jigs and minnows behind the boat with the trolling motor and catch crappies, but over night the wind turned around completely, from out of the SE to out of the North at about 10mph. 
 
We had cloud cover early that turned into a clear sunny day.  A few walleyes were coming out of 10 feet of water with jigs and minnows or leeches, early and late in the day.  The crappies were slow today, except one here and there on wood.  We saw lots of bluegills, crappies, pike and bass moving in the shallows, along with the painted and snapping turtles. 
 
We pulled many bass including one 4 plus pounds.  So a jig and pig was a great goto bait. 
 
Pike were easily taken with spinnerbaits trolled at 2.5 mph, this bite will just get better. 
 
The bluegills are in full spawn and another boat beat me to the hot corner with loads of them in it, for a second day in a row.  Hey guys, my turn next time?  
 
Remember to get kids out fishing and I'll see you on the water.
  
MinnesotaFishingGuide.com