With winter and the short colder than average days finally coming to an end, we’ve begun to see the beginning that we all want, while ice and cold didn’t release their grasp as early as we would have wanted, it did happen. Officially Leech’s ice out date was in the midnight hours of May 8th, and on opening morning there were still a few reports of people seeing a rogue chunk of ice floating around the lake. Cold temps and a late ice-out made the opening weekend a bit of a struggle for some, water temps were only hovering around the 40 degree mark, with fish being caught that still had eggs in them.

Overall, I’d say fishing was decent opening weekend, Saturday morning started off flat calm and sunny, you could easily see through 15 feet of clear water to the bottom, and during conditions like that, Walleye fishing is going to be tough, it really wasn’t until Saturday evening when the fishing really kicked into gear, with a little wind and nice overcast.

Fish are mainly being caught on shallow wind-blown structure, points and weed beds with jigs and Fatheads, with late ice the spot-tail Shiner population is non existent, unless you find bait from southern area’s of the state where ice has been out longer, our bait guy keeps telling us “soon” for Shiners, so lets hope. Areas around Stoney and Pine Points were probably the best, (I was out for a boat ride the other day and there must have been 50+ boats at both spots) but some prefer to stay away from the hoards of boats that fancy that area early on.

Pictured below are some opening weekend eaters, as you can see by the middle one (the first 18-20″ walleye I have cleaned in about 8 years) fish in the new slot range are coming in, I’d say about 10 or 15% of the fish I’ve cleaned this year are in that range, and might I say, a 19.5″ walleye has a fantastic fillet on it, amazing what a couple more inches does.

Pictured below From L to R: Kevin Luehrs one of our owners here, and a dandy 25″ walleye he caught while fishing 5 mile point, and our Cedar Rapids, IA crew, Dan, Loren, Wayne, and Russ another owner here, who spend the week here for opener with one of many stringers full of walleye they caught.

And another shot of Dan Becker, with the first reported Muskie catch coming in at 36″ I look forward to chasing some Muskie myself.

And for those of you who have been waiting for the reports to start-up (M.R.) this will be the first of many this season, keep an eye out on our website, I try to put a new one up weekly on Mondays. I’m going to keep in contact with some local guides and resorts to keep the most up-to-date reports and tips and tricks to help you guys get the most out of your fishing trips.

Everyone here at Big Rock Resort looks forward to seeing you this season.

Thanks for reading.

Come see us at Big Rock Resort

Ray