GRAND RAPIDS — "They're as hungry as they're ever gonna be, and there's a lot of food in the lake, so they're going to be feeding all the time," said Jeff Sundin.
Sundin is a Northern Minnesota fishing guide and a weekly guest on the KAXE Morning Show.
With warmer water temperatures, Sundin said this is a perfect time for "mixed bag" fishing, which brings a lot of action into the boat. On a recent trip to Bowstring Lake, Sundin trolled the edges of the weeds, using spinners that produced lots of northern pike, walleyes, sunfish, perch, rock bass and even bullheads.
"Before you know it, you'll have quite a harvest of fish, even though you didn't really get down and hammer on one thing."
Walleye action
On Lake Winnibigoshish this week, walleyes were biting. In his fishing report, Sundin observed:
"As has been widely reported, there are enough walleyes located on mid-lake structures in Lake Winnibigoshish. Recently, we've found enough fish, in a wide enough variety of spots, to make 'fishing in the middle' a solid, all day game plan. The most active fish at most locations are in water depths of 18 to 24 feet.
"Surface temperatures now range from 76 to 78 degrees over much of the lake. The warm water, combined with plenty of sunshine has encouraged a healthy algae bloom on Lake Winnibigoshish. The diminished water clarity resulting from the algae bloom made it easier ... to bag walleyes using traditional fishing methods on Monday.
"Fishing vertically with Lindy rigs, or 1/4-ounce live bait jigs tipped with night crawlers, leeches and large minnows worked, for the most part, as well as they ever did during the pre-zebra-mussel days.
"I used the term, 'for the most part' because leeches, when delivered on plain hook Lindy rigs, tend to find the bottom and get snagged on clusters of zebra mussels. The typical solution is to use night crawlers injected with a bubble of air to keep them floating higher above the bottom. That trick worked a little bit ... but the problem was that walleyes were clearly more eager to eat leeches than worms.
"Our solution was to put the leeches on jigs instead, then drop the jigs to the bottom, reel up a foot or two and then hold the lures still. The swimming leech, absent from all other action added to the bait, did all of the work, attracting fish reliably. Slip-floats, the current favorite of many anglers is also an alternative and works well at keeping leeches suspended, too."
You can learn more from Sundin or listen to our conversation above.
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