First Catches of the Open Water Season

It'd been a busy few weeks since my last fishing, which was on the last of the good hardwater in mid-April. With my first kid coming in June, my wife and I have been busy trying to get things lined up, get to appointments, and make sure the house (and us) are close to ready for when she gets here.

Days off have meant errands and another to-do's, but I've been happily going about them. But it sure felt good to get out for some morning fishing with my friend Matt on his boat this week for some walleyes, after nearly a month long hiatus from wetting a line.

With a tournament coming up at the beginning of next month, down at Angostura Reservoir, (both of ours first open water tournament), we wanted to start figuring out where the fish would consistently be hanging out post spawn.

It felt great flying across the lake in the cool morning temps, though, it would warm considerably to where I got to try out the new Shade UPF fishing shirt I'd recently gotten from Blackfish Gear which worked great for keeping me cooler.

Matt had been to the lake a few times before and we tried a couple of places where he'd caught several 'eyes, but they didn't produce much for us. Using Northland Fishing Tackle Thumper Jigs, coupled with Impulse Core and Swim'n Grub plastics, we continued to check other areas until a bit later in the morning when we found an area nestled in sunken trees that started to produce some decent walleyes, along with smallmouth bass. We weren't after the bass, but who doesn't like a hard fighting smallie on the hook!

The walleyes weren't the bigger ones we were looking for. They were all spawned out males and were good eating size, though we threw them all back and our constant trolling back and forth drew attention from other anglers who started gathering in the same area after the two big gathering places on the lake dried up.

Though we lost a lot jigs in the area, we at least had a spot that could produce some fish should the bigger 'eyes prove elusive in a couple of weeks. We will see if the area produces next week when we come back to continue pre-fishing the lake.