Walleyes aplenty for fishing opener

CRANE LAKE, MINN. - Anglers didn't have to catch walleyes here Saturday, the first day of the state's 2010 fishing season, to enjoy themselves.

With afternoon temperatures bumping against 70 degrees, soft southerly breezes barely creating a lake ripple, and the sky blue, the day was spectacular, fish or no fish.

Fortunately, our bunch boated enough walleyes -- a good share of them plump and feisty -- to cap off an opener that won't soon be forgotten, not in a state whose first fishing day often is visited by frigid temperatures, gale-like winds and slanting snow.

The fish we found weren't in the same places we located them a year ago, when we also started the season on Crane Lake, on the Minnesota-Ontario border.

Last year, spring came late to the North Country, and the "Gorge," a popular opening-day spot on Crane Lake -- where the Vermilion River spills into Crane from the south -- held vast numbers of walleyes, some gigantic, in the 7- and 8-pound range.

Hoping to relive opening-day success a year ago, most of our bunch made their initial stop Saturday morning at the Gorge. But fish there were either nonexistent or tight-lipped.

So we shifted to alternative positions up the lake, stopping first at King Williams Narrows to jig and rig, then at an area leading to adjoining Sand Point Lake known as "the pinch."

"Too small," he said.

We wanted fish in our boats for various reasons, not least the fun involved in catching them. But we also had plans for dinner -- and the star attraction was to be walleyes sizzled to perfection.

Early on, we wondered whether we might not instead be opening a can of Ron Schara Spam for dinner.

Schara, the retired Star Tribune outdoors columnist, is famous for carrying a can of Spam with him on opening day, if only a metaphorical one, in case he ends the day skunked, and needs the food.

But Schara says his angling skills are such that he's never had to open his now well-traveled, bent and rusty tin.

With me in my boat were my sons, Trevor and Cole.

Also with us, and staying at their Crane Lake cabin, were my brother, Dick, his wife, Patti, their son, Brian, and Brian's fiancée, Katie Kritzeck.

Thoughout the day, our five boats plied not only Crane Lake but also connected waterways Sand Point Lake and Namakan Lake, the last two of which are shared by Minnesota and Ontario.

Unusually, the Ontario walleye season also opened Saturday, an event that rarely occurs. Typically, Ontario fishing begins a week later than Minnesota's.

But note: If you hope to fish on the Canadian side of Minnesota-Ontario border waters, be sure you bring a passport, and be sure also you leave behind any bait you might have purchased in the United States.

These included a handful of walleyes that exceeded 22 inches, each plump with spectacularly golden sides.

We found these outsized specimens in water that was alternately shallow and deep, and we caught them on a variety of baits.

If there was a pattern to this, it defied our assessment.

Throughout the day, John had a hot hand, boating a couple of dandy walleyes with thick girths and burly attitudes.

The rest of us got into the act as well. Not only with walleyes but crappies (some dandies caught by the Kelleys), a smallmouth bass (average size), a largemouth bass (a 4-pounder!) and even northern pike, taken on crankbaits by Trevor and Cole after they'd grown tired of jigging.

Instead, we had walleyes aplenty, and as Saturday afternoon's gauzy blue sky faded lazily to dusk, then to black, we sizzled this prized fish to perfection, the first day of summer well begun, and ended better.