Posts tagged 'Spring'

Come ice out, I look forward to the chance to cast a line and battle a scrappy rainbow or brown. And for the most part, these early season fish are willing biters.

After a long cold winter many anglers are eager to get out fly fishing at the first sign of spring ...

It happens every spring on every lake I've been to. Chironomids hatch in such profuse numbers that trout gorge on them exclusively. This is an event where the fishing is either out of this world fantastic, or it's downright miserable. The determining factor is whether the angler is fishing a chironomid as those that are catch fish like crazy while those that aren't, watch.

The change over from March 31st to April 1st completely redefines the angling landscape. Where many pike, walleye and whitefish lakes were open March 31st, come April 1st most all of them are closed. Given this, for those of us still eager to hit the ice and catch a fish, our best bet is to chase trout. Almost every trout lake near and far remains open year round however local regulations should be reviewed before setting out. The upside is that some of the best ice fishing happens through April.

The warm days of March seem to trigger something in lake whitefish.  They seem to go nuts and get started on the biggest feed of the year.  There are days when I can limit out in minutes as one fish after the other line up and hammer my hook.  I think the warmer weather from the Spring sun kicks the food chain up a notch.  Whatever the reason, it’s a great time to be a whitefish angler.

The May long weekend just passed and by all accounts the walleye season is off and running. A group of friends just came back from Calling Lake with fantastic success, landing around 20 walleye, plus a dozen pike. My friend Arnold Carlin was finding walleye off the shores of Lac St. Anne and they were hitting just about anything. My buddy Ross Stout was casting a line off shore at Pigeon Lake and couldn't keep them off. His trick was to slow drag a jig with a white curly tail right on bottom. He said they were smacking it nearly every cast, especially when he let the jig settle and pause.

With the ice just coming off the lakes, the water will be at its coldest for the entire open water season. To catch fish, it’s all about sending out a presentation that matches their metabolism, which in the cold water of ice out, is very slow. One of the top presentations I employ during early spring is the slip bobber. It is the catch all fishing machine. Simply said, a slip bobber delivers a suspended bait in front of a fish and keeps it there for as long as it takes to get that fish to bite.

If you've never tried fly fishing through the ice, last ice is a great time to catch a bunch of rainbows utilizing a half dozen flies. Half are finesse and half are the opposite.

With the pothole trout lakes open and, in many instances at this time of year, the only water bodies we can fish.

It's early in the year and the fishing is just getting started. While the water may be cold, the fish are obviously still living in the lake. They're still there feeding and offering us an opportunity to catch them. All we need to do is figure out where they are and how to catch them. Given that many of us will be limited to trout fishing early in the season as many of our pike and walleye lakes are under closure, let's look at trout more closely. Rainbows are our most popular trout species and here are a few tips to figure out where they will be at this time of year.