Spring Trip Planner 2019
PHOTO2– Kevan Paul with a Clear Lake crappie caught a couple springs ago.
By Mike Frisch
As the days get longer and the weather gradually warms, more and more of my thoughts are turning to open-water fishing. Since I live in Minnesota where inland lakes don’t open to walleye fishing until mid-May, I often make several trips each spring to other places where walleyes are fair game. Here are a couple destinations that I am planning to visit that have the potential to produce outstanding catches this spring!
Big Stone Lake, (MN/SD)
At the time of this writing, it appears that Big Stone Lake, on the Minnesota/South Dakota border, will no longer have a closed fishing season as a proposal to eliminate the closed season on Big Stone appeared to be all but final. That means that as soon as the ice leaves the lake, the fishing will start! Depending on the year, open-water on Big Stone can be expected by early- to mid-April.
Early season on Big Stone means hungry pre-spawn walleyes roaming the lake’s expansive rocky shorelines. When I say shorelines, often that means the fish hold right tight to shore! Pitching small jigs tipped with minnows to the edge where water meets rock is often productive. Shallow roaming baitfish are present on these rocks drawing walleyes, and the fish use these areas for spawning as well.
Small 1/16-ounce Fire-Ball Jigs tipped with fathead minnows often yield good catches. The good early season fishing often happens in the northern reaches of this 26-mile long water. The bite progresses south as the water warms. Since there is lots of potentially productive shoreline to fish on Big Stone, staying on the move searching for that first fish is recommended. Once the first bite or two is had, it’s not unusual to slow up and catch several more fish from an area!
Big Stone will be on my fishing menu this spring. If you are considering a trip of your own, check out bigstonelakechamber.comfor more information about this top fishing destination and the surrounding area.
In addition to walleyes, good spring catches of largemouth bass, crappies, and bluegills are also common on Big Stone.
Clear Lake, Iowa
I had a chance to share a boat a few years ago in early May with Bob Jensen, Fishing the Midwest TV founder, and Kevan Paul fishing Clear Lake in north central Iowa. Bob has been fishing Clear Lake since he was a boy and Kevan is a leading guide on the lake.
We found numbers of shallow walleyes of all sizes and had a blast casting small jigs tipped with minnows and leeches to the fish. Since multiple lines are legal, we used additional lines to suspend jigs and bait below bobbers. This method caught several of our fish, including some of the biggest.
Interestingly, some of these fish were so shallow that we flipped our jigs (a la bass fishermen) under docks to reach them. Some of the walleyes were feeding on bugs hatching off the lake’s bottom, so we used small Stand-Up Fire-Balls Jigs. The “stand up” design kept our baits squirming just above bottom providing easy meals for the walleyes.
Clear Lake also has a good crappie population and we spent part of our day in shallow shoreline reeds and cane dipping small jigs in openings within the vegetation for shallow feeding crappies.
I’m hoping for a return trip to Clear Lake in late April or in May. If you decide to plan a similar outing, visit clearlakeiowa.com to learn more about the area.
Mike Frisch hosts the popular Fishing the Midwest TV series and is a co-founder of the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s School of Fish. Follow Fishing the Midwest on Facebook to see more from Mike.