Opener update

Free Press photographer Pat Christman spent a good chunk of the morning out on Lake Washington. It sounds like he got out to the lake and joined up with a few friends who were on the lake waiting for the midnight opener. The trio got skunked, but Christman did manage to see a few anglers pulling in walleye (one he called "a very nice walleye"), and he spoke to a few other anglers who said they caught a few here and there. He also shot a few nice photos.

John Cross is fishing northward on Cross Lake (how fitting). It sounds like he and Brian Fowler (Quality 1-Hour photo/Sport Pix) caught their limit of walleye and then some. According to Cross, the duo had to throw back quite a few because they were over the slot limit. Now, I know what you're thinking ... "Sure they did, Doug ... sure they did," but I'll take Cross for most of his word, and that most is better than many anglers out on the lakes today.

I also spoke with a few friends fishing scattered throughout the region and state, and I'm hearing a lot of crappie reports but no walleye reports. To that extent, I took a few minutes to check the Twitter experiement Outdoor News set up. To my delight, very few tweets were posted ... but of the ones posted, most noted being skunked or the day being very slow. I'd blame the weather ... too bright or something!

Keep on keepin' on.

Opener is here!

Just a quick note, since, like most of you, the day has been busy. No walleyes so far, but I did pull in a limit of crappies this morning. I'm hoping to get the scoop from a few other anglers and post something this evening. Heck, if anyone is reading this right now anyhow, it means they're not out fishing.

Just a friendly reminder

The Free Press will be accepting photos from the walleye/northern fishing opener for an online photo gallery. Photos should be no bigger than 2 MB, and photos will be accepted until 4 p.m. Sunday0. People appearing in photos should be identified, and catches should be identified as well (i.e. Adam Angler, 4 lb. walleye). If you chose to identify the lake where the catch came from, even better, but we're betting that most people like to keep a good honey hole quiet. We will be updating the photos periodically during walleye-opener weekend, so keep checking back to view the best catches. The final gallery should be done no later than Monday afternoon, but those dates could change depending on the volume of photos we receive. This is a good thing, people — show off your skills and while you're at it, show off what Minnesota has to offer in the way of quality fishing.

Beginning Saturday, send photos to photos@mankatofreepress.com.

Soft on plastics

Just got done reading Dennis Anderson's "Is live bait dead?" article on the Star Tribune's Web site. He basically breaks down the different soft baits and the history of each, but it's some pretty interesting stuff. I'm a soft-bait freak, so naturally I'm intrigued by the history of the these baits. I'm not surprised that less and less people fish with live bait, but I'm not badmouthing live bait either. Sometimes, the only good way to catch a fish is to give them something real to eat.

I've become a fan of Berkley's Gulp! Alive! leeches. These leeches come in a convenient pail with a screw-on lid, they look real, and the saline used to keep the leeches fresh actually helps invigorate a used leech, or any other Gulp! soft bait you might have.

I'm also a nut when it comes to Berkley's PowerBaits, mostly because I love to fish a Texas rig for bass. The pumpkinseed/chartruesse, 7-inch worm has been a consistent bait for me for several years and is often the first worm color I throw each season. However, I'm flexible when it comes to different soft baits, so long as I like two things: the color and its movement when jigged or hopped off the bottom of the lake.

This year, I'm turning to the TriggerX soft baits Anderson discusses in his article. I already have a few packs of these soft baits in the my tackle selection, and I'm eager for the bass opener to start (TriggerX makes soft baits that are species-specific, meaning there are baits designed just for walleyes, and just for bass) throwing these babies. One thing of note that makes these soft baits worthy of consideration is the saturation of the pheromones throughout the bait (each bait is individually packaged inside it's outer packaging. Within these individual packages is a sealed, solution-soaked plastic. I think the extra packaging will be a bonus, but I also think that it will be a bother coming up with a creative way to store it in the tackle box. But like a guy who can hit in baseball, if these baits catch fish, I'll find a place for them with the other players in my tackle box.

I could go on and on about the plastics I use, but that's better saved for another time. Lastly, I'd like to point out that Berkley has made an adjustment to its chigger craws (a nice complimentary soft bait for your tackle box), introducing a pair of "crazy legs" that look more like antennas than legs. Oh, but how those extra wigglers could drive the bass wild ... we'll have to wait and see.

The beauty of the beetle spin

Every now and again, I dip into the ol' tackle box and pull out a trusty beetle spin. These in-line spinners have long turned up a variety of fish, including crappies, sunfish, bass, northerns and carp. Today, I turned to a white-body beetle spin with a centered, red dot. This color combination has broken the skunk of a slow bass fishing outing more than once, and I've always had luck picking up panfish with this lure. Well, the white spinner turned out golden again as Free Press Staff Writer Tanner Kent and I picked off seven good crappies, a few more too small to keep, a sunfish and a couple of small, male bass. One of the crappies weighed in at 1 pound, and a couple others weren't far behind. A sastifying day, nonetheless.

A note on the bass: I am a strong advocate for not fishing for bass out of season. There are several reasons for not doing so, but all those reasons come back to one basic fact — to protect the fish. The two male bass I caught were small, and I imagine most people catching those bass would just toss them back in and not think twice about what they did. But I urge anyone who accidentally catches a bass to handle it with care and get it back in the water as soon as possible. People always say we should protect the spawning females while on the bed, and this is very true, but protecting those small males is equally important, because the small males are the ones that fend off predators and protect the eggs on the bed. Catching those bass puts the bed in danger because the bass take a while to get back to the bed, or the bass may never make it back to the bed.

Where to fish on opener

Finding a good place to hunker down for walleye opener is never an easy task. If you go north, you have to deal with traffic, lodging and possible frostier conditions, but the catch is usually well worth the travel. If you stay around the area, it's a good bet that most of the public access landings will be filled up sooner rather than later. But what lakes in the area are going to be the it lakes for 2009? If I were a betting man, and I am, I'd put my money on Washington, Madison, Crystal and Loon, though those are only a few quality walleye lakes in the area. Free Press Outdoors Writer John Cross offered his take over the weekend. He met with DNR official Hugh Valiant, who works in the Waterville hatchery and is well regarded in the region as a man in the know.

Action heating up?

I'm hearing scattered reports from the Take a Kid Fishing crappie tournament this past weekend on Lake Washington. Sounds like the crappies were biting, which is nice, but for those of you desperately waiting for Saturday's walleye/northern opener, it sounds like some walleyes and northern were caught as well. Hopefully the weather continues to turn the fishing on, but as any of us know, the walleye opener in Minnesota can get pretty nasty. Weather.com is showing showers Friday with mostly clear skies Saturday and Sunday (seriously, no rain?!). Temps are expected to be in the low- to mid-60s. But it is weather I'm talking about here, so stay tuned.

I'm heading out tomorrow to test out the crappie action and to get the poles in working order. Check back Tuesday afternoon for an update.