What a crazy week!  We have had high winds blowing for roughly 4 days now.  The only time it seems to let up is when the rain moves in only to start blowing again.  The good thing is that the fish are still hungry and active.

This past Saturday I had the chance to spend some time in the boat with my favorite fishing partners, my boys.  At age 11 and 5 they were determined to teach Dad a few tricks.  Ryan, my 11 year old picked where we were going to fish and what baits we were going to use.  Needless to say he was right on the money.

We targeted heavy thick weeds in 6' of water with a sharp break leading into deep water.  The bait of choice was Northland's new Thumper Crappie King tipped with a 2" DoubleCurl Screwtail.  Working these small baits slowly through the weeds were great for perch, most of them being nice eaters.  When it was time for a change we moved out over the steep break and found suspended crappie which the same "Thumpers" produced well.

Walleye are still aggressive and being found on mid lake humps and bars.  It looks like for now the jig and minnow bite is over for the most part.  Our best luck has been vertically fishing a 6' Roach Rig tipped with a leech or crawler.  the main trick has been to keep it slow.

Typical spring weather for Northern Minnesota has arrived making each day on the water another challenge.  One day you have calm sunny days that warm up the shallows to 51-52 degrees where the fish really turn on and  next a cold front moves in and pushes the fish anywhere from 10'-15' and slows the bite right down.  This past Saturday we experienced a comfortable morning which quickly turned to wind and rain with a short break and then rain and hale followed by 50mph winds.  Through it all my customers elected to stay on the water and we found catchable fish.

The one thing that remains constant is what the fish are in the mood for.  A 1/16oz or 1/8oz Fireball depending on how hard the wind is blowing tipped with a silver shiner has been producing best.  Colors are changing on a regular basis from watermelon to parrot, from parrot to perch, from perch to rainbow and then back to watermelon.  Sometimes we would go through all these changes within 30 minutes on the same school of fish.  Most of the time a slow presentation is key but several times snap jigging has got them going.

In Northern Minnesota we don't usually have the opportunity to fish Opening Weekend and have Pre Spawn, Spawn and Post Spawn all at the same time.  This made for an unbelievable weekend on the water.  We checked just about every fish that came in the boat and found both males and females that were pretty ripe but the majority of fish were spent and had their feed bags on.

At sunrise we found surface water temperature to be just over 40 degrees but as the day progressed we were able to find 43 degrees.

With water temperatures being so cold the slower your presentation the better.  Picture in your mind what the definition of slow is and then cut that in half and you will still be going to fast.  We did best when I could keep the boat around .4 mph on my GPS.  As would be expected

a 1/16oz Fireball tipped with a spot tail shiner produced exceptionally well.  We found plenty of fish in 5' of water early in the day but as boat traffic increase our Watermellon and Glow Rainbow Fireballs did better around 10' of water.

The only problem we had was finding fish that were small enough to keep but I would say that is a good problem to have.  Plenty of 22"-25" with even a guy in our group landing a 28".

To top off the day, rain came down off and on all day turned into thick wet snow making everything white again.  What a perfect day for Duck Hunting (If it was October)!!!

I spoke with Jeff Sundin yesterday morning and he had made the trek to the Rainy River the middle of last week.  Lots of eater size eyes and a few pigs pushing the 30" mark.  Still a lot of ice up there on the main channel near the Frontier Landing but that could have all changed by now.  To read Jeff's full report go to www.jeffsundin.com .

What has me really excited are the Crappie and Bluegill reports.  Reports of a consistent bite going on throughout the day have been coming in on many of the smaller area lakes.  I hope to experience this shallow water bite myself in the next week or so.

the electronics you would have to jiggle the rod as you reeled it up.  Sometimes the fish wouldn't hit it till you brought it up around 3'.

I finally had the chance to use Northland's new Trick-Stick Combos and I must say I am thoroughly impressed.  I have used some of their walleye rods this winter but this was my first time with the 24" ultra light in hand.  This amazing stick has a spring bobber mounted to the last eyelet that allows you to feel the slightest tap and be able to see it transpire at the same time.  With Pan Fish season here I strongly recommend giving one a try.

While many this weekend chose to stay inside and watch the Super Bowl on television, a few of us decided to hit the lake, take advantage of the warm weather and watch "Nature's Television".

Travel conditions are pretty descent at this time with hard packed snow and plenty of ice.  On most of the bigger lakes in the area, slush is pretty hard to find but on the smaller bodies of water this is a different story.

The past couple of weeks drastic changes in the weather have made fishing a hit or miss activity.  Over the last  few days the weather has chosen to be more consistent giving more positive opportunities to anglers.  Perch action has been good throughout the day.  We have been setting up on steep breaks in roughly 26'-28' of water.  These breaks have shallow flats close by and drop to deep main lake basins.  The same areas are producing walleye in low light periods.  During daylight we have had our best success using a Northland Eye Dropper and Airplane Jig both in Silver Shiner.  As the sun begins to touch the trees we found that the Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon in Super-Glo Goldfish and Super-Glo Chub tipped with a minnow head kept them biting.