FIRST FISHING TRIP AFTER WINTER
Snow covers my front lawn but as I look outside I see a pink flamingo poking up out of the snow. It is time to go fishing.
Before anyone thinks I have been ingesting weird chemicals or have gone completely wacky with the long winter and piles of snow around my house, let me explain. Some years back I became enthralled with those plastic pink flamingos one finds all over Florida. I thought my lawn could use one. I found one, setting it out on the front lawn. From time to time I move it around the lawn just to amuse my neighbors who probably think I am wacky anyway.
Once winter starts my pink flamingo is eventually covered by snow drifts. Once I start to see the flamingo emerge from the snow as it begins to melt then I feel spring is on its way. Now I am seeing the back of my pink flamingo showing itself as snow is starting to disappear.
First keeper fish, a walleye, on the first fishing trip of the year on open water caught just below the dam north of Red Wing, Minn, on the Mississippi River.
For me the sight of my flamingo is a sure sign of spring and with it the beginning of open water fishing. It is a direct cause and effect relationship. Seeing the flamingo means I can get out on the Mississippi River.
About the time I saw the flamingo I get a call from my marine dealer, Warner’s Dock in New Richmond, Wisconsin. I call them The Boat Doctor because in addition to selling me my last three boats they also do all the maintenance on my boat, motor and trailer. Two weeks earlier I took my boat in for what I call it’s spring check up and they just called to tell me my boat is ready to go fishing.
I already have a fishing trip planned. Walleyes and sauger should be hitting on the Mississippi River. It is time to go fishing.
GETTING READY FOR THE FIRST TRIP
Once in the garage I charge both the starting and trolling motor batteries although they didn’t need much charging since they survived the winter fairly well. I put the big thirty pound anchor in the boat. I seldom use an anchor any other time of the year except when fishing the Mississippi River. It is the biggest anchor I can find and sometimes it isn’t even enough for the strong currents in the Mississippi River swollen with the runoff from melting snow.
Next I load heavy clothes in my vehicle. When fishing the Mississippi River in early spring I dress as if I am going ice fishing. My fishing buddy, Dennis tells me the coldest he has ever been in his adult life was with me in the spring on the Mississippi. Sitting in an aluminum boat on frigid water as a cold wind, sometimes laced with snow and ice, blowing out of the north is as harsh as any day on the ice.
In the back of my vehicle I put insulated bibs, a Gortex jacket to wear over a down jacket, fleece pullover sweater, hooded sweatshirt, and a wax cloth Stormy Kromer hat, a pair of neoprene boots and several pairs of gloves. There are days in the spring when even all this isn’t enough.
Then comes the fishing equipment. I bring up the tackle box with the heavy jigs and sinkers I use in the spring. I seldom ever use anything lighter than an ounce since the trick is to get your bait to the bottom and keep it there despite runoff, swollen water and strong currents.
I have one spinning combo rigged with a three way rig similar to the Wolf River Rig, except I replace the bell shaped sinker with an ounce chartreuse jig. Another spinning rod has a three quarter ounce firetiger colored blade spoon and another with a chartreuse Fireball Jig by Northland. You can see a pattern here. All the baits have chartreuse. It is the one color which seems to always work in the murky water found in the Mississippi River.
I also have a couple casting rod combos with a three foot long leader with a hook and some chartreuse beads below a heavy bell shaped sinker. The sinker can be as heavy as two and a quarter ounces to get the bait to bottom in the worst spring current.
These are packed in the rod lockers with spare rods placed in rod racks in the garage. Then of course I check the rest of the boat, insuring I have three life vests, extra gloves and a stocking cap. In a box under the counsel I have my camera, sun glasses and all the other odds and ends I use from day to day.
The boat is ready. So am I. It is time to go fishing.
I start to watch the weather. On the day we are going fishing the forecast calls for mild temperatures with possible rain and perhaps a bit of snow. What else would I expect? It is spring and the first fishing trip of the year on open water.
GOING FISHING
Dennis Virden, of Burnsville, Minn., shows up to tell me it snowed all the way from his house to just before he crossed into Wisconsin. We attach the trailer and boat, load Dennis’ clothes and our lunch in my vehicle and head south for the Mississippi River. Just as we get close to the landing a light snow begins drifting down. Skies are gray but it looks like little or no wind. It is a good feeling to see the boat slide off the trailer into the water. I have waited all winter for this day.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of boats out today. At the landing there are only eleven vehicles with boat trailers. We heard the fishing has been slow but it the first time on open water so we don’t care about the reports. It is just good to be fishing.
We head upriver, towards the dam a few miles north of Red Wing, Minn. We find only three other boats just below the dam. As we are slowly moving toward the bank we see one boat with three fishermen in it. One guy is fighting a fish and as we pass them one of the other fishermen leans over, grabs into the water, pulling a large brown catfish into the boat. This is a good omen.
There is a rocky island splitting the lock and dam with the lock on the Minnesota side of the river and the dam on the Wisconsin side. I slowly motor the boat close to the island on the dam side. The rollers are down on the dam and it looks like the current is not as strong as we normally see this time of year. We are in about twenty three feet of water when I tell Dennis to drop the anchor. The boat swings around with the current and the anchor rope tightens as the anchor digs in. Snow spits from the sky.
We bait hooks and drop our baits into the water. I am using a three way rig with an ounce jig and Dennis is using a three quarter ounce Fireball jig with a stinger hook. Both baits easily get to the bottom and stay there.
Fifteen minutes later the boat which caught the catfish drifts by.
We ask how big the catfish was and they tell us it measured thirty five inches. We congratulate them and ask if they caught anything else. They tell us the fishing is slow and have only two fish in their livewell. One was caught in over forty feet of water and the other in over thirty feet.
The rule of thumb when fishing the river is when the water is high fish shallow and if normal or low than fish deep. I define twenty feet of water as the dividing line between deep or shallow water. The river is now just a bit above normal so I feel we will be alright where we are and besides, over the years I have caught a lot of fish at this spot close to the bank. But talking to those guys does make me wonder if perhaps fish are in much deeper water right now.
Dennis Virden and I dress for fishing in early Spring on the Mississipp River as if we are going ice fishing.
FIRST FISH
As I am working this over in my mind I feel a light tap and when I bring my line up I have lost a minnow. I might have had a light strike I tell Dennis. Ten minutes later I feel a lot stronger strike and pulling back to set the hook I feel a fish pulling away. I quickly turn the fish and a moment later lead it into the net. The fish is a walleye and it looks big enough to keep. I measure the fish and it is a little over fifteen inches. On the Mississippi River walleyes have a minimum size limit of fifteen inches while sauger do not have any size restrictions. The walleye goes into the livewell. Dennis wants to take a meal of fish home with him.
Although we are fishing for walleyes and sauger you can catch just about anything in the Mississippi River. In the spring we see a lot of catfish and sturgeon. It is not uncommon to catch crappies, yellow perch, northern pike, even a muskie from time to time and over the years we have even caught a couple of brown trout. Later in April when the white bass move in it is not unusual to catch a hundred fish per boat per day.
A couple more boats show up at the dam but we don’t see any fish being caught. We stop for lunch and decide after lunch we will give this spot another half hour and if we get nothing we will move across the channel to the Wisconsin bank. We resume fishing and the next thing we notice is the boat is moving. I check to find the anchor broke loose. We find ourselves in a little over thirty feet of water when we drop the anchor again. We did say we wanted to move. We fish there for about a half hour without a strike.
Dennis pulls the anchor in as I maneuver the boat back to where we had been but this time move a little further out into a bit deeper water. We drop anchor in about twenty seven feet of water and the current swings us back and forth from twenty five to twenty eight feet. The current is still not very strong.
Eighteen inch sauger full of spawn caught by Mike Yurk, This fish was released since it was full of spawn.
We hear the deep guttural honking of geese and look up to see a string of Canada geese working northward against the wind. Above them is a flock of snow geese yelping. Around us we see eagles twisting and turning in the sky above us, others sitting in trees screeching at each other. I look upriver towards the dam to see an eagle set its wings, glide just above the water and pluck out a fish before it swings up, away from the water. Everything comes alive on the Mississippi River during the spring.
We notice the snow has stopped. The winds remain light. It is pleasant sitting in the boat today but Dennis and I dressed for the worst weather and are comfortable. We talk of other days on the river in the spring, recalling sitting out on the water in blizzards and ice storms with line freezing in the rod guides. Today is a pleasant exception.
I feel another hard tap on my line as a fish races off. This is a bigger fish and I yell for Dennis to grab the net. It puts up a tougher battle by the time Dennis pulls the net up with the fish sagging in the mess. It is an eighteen inch sauger, swollen with spawn already starting to leak out. I twist the hook out, slipping the fish back in the water. I feel guilty about putting the fish back but hate to kill a spawning fish in the spring although I know Dennis wants a fish fry.
We notice the wind picks up a bit but is still fairly mild and the current seems to be getting stronger.
A twenty one inch walleye. A good fighting fish, fun to catch but too big to keep.
Half an hour later another fish hits. This fish is another walleye, just a bit bigger than the first one we kept so it goes into the livewell. Dennis now has enough fish for a Friday night fish fry so I feel better, no more guilt about releasing the sauger, knowing we have the fish fry covered.
We discuss changing spots again but notice no one is catching any more fish than we are. We decide to stay put since we are catching some fish.
A fish surges off with my bait. This is no tentative strike. It slammed it. “Big fish,” I yell to Dennis. My spinning rod is bent in half and the tip is plunging. The fish runs off and I stop it, starting to get it coming toward the boat but it keeps darting off. Slowly I get the fish closer and we can now see it. Dennis gets the net under the fish, pulling it in the boat. It is a big walleye, thick and feisty. It measures twenty one inches. I get the hook out, taking a photo before I slip it back in the water.
It is getting late in the afternoon when we decide to head back to the landing. Just before we leave I get one small walleye which I release so it can grow up. We ended the day with four walleyes and one sauger, keeping the two walleyes for Dennis’ fish fry.
FISHING CAN CHANGE QUICKLY IN THE SPRING
Currently the river is just a bit above normal and clear. Both of these conditions are a bit unusual for this time of the year. The late winter snows have been melting slowly so there isn’t a major influx of runoff yet. That can change with just one spring rain but for now the river is in the best shape I have seen in years this time of the season.
The fishing has been slow the last couple of weeks but that too will change. Fishing activity can change from day to day and in some cases from hour to hour on the river. Over the years it seems the best fishing is found when the weather is at it’s worse. I have always maintained duck hunters have nothing over river walleye fishermen when it comes to finding success while enduring the worst weather. The Mississippi River has some of the best walleye and sauger fishing found anywhere in the Mid West. It will just be a matter of time before those fish will start to actively move upriver, feeding aggressively in preparation for spawning.
This is also the time to catch the biggest walleyes of the year. I have seen huge fish caught in spring. Walleyes aren’t the only big fish in spring. One year I caught a fifty pound catfish. It took over half an hour to land it. Another time I had a five foot long sturgeon on for almost an hour when it finally broke off right next to the boat. Spring is the time for big fish.
As Dennis and I return to the landing we are happy. It is our first day on open water after what has been a long winter. The weather was fairly nice for this time of the year, we weren’t skunked and Dennis got a fish fry.
Can’t ask for much more from the first fishing trip.
Editors Note: Mike Yurk’s column is sponsored by Warner’s Dock in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Warner’s Dock is the premier marine dealer in northwestern Wisconsin. They have a complete supply of new and used boats, motors, and trailers as well as other marine supplies plus a complete maintenance staff for all your boating needs. They can be contacted through their website at www.warnersdock.com or by telephone at 1-888-222-3625.
The return of the bald eagles to the Mississippi River is just one of many birds that make spring fishing come alive.