80 degree weather in Ely Minnesota & it's May!

After a slow opening weekend, the fishing has started to pick up with the hot weather. The warm 80 degree air temps have caused our surface water temps to reach the 70’s. With the warmer water temps the walleyes have fallen into a pattern this past week.

If you are able to wake up early in the morning start fishing some rocky points in 18-22 ft of water with a jig and a minnow or leech. When jigging you really want to keep it very subtle.

For those of you that are night owls, the walleyes can be found slip bobbering sandy drop offs in 8-12 feet of water or casting jigs with plastics works too. Lighted slip bobbers (pictured above) also work great in the evening hours. Check out the 32” northern pike below that was caught on a slip bobber with a minnow at the main dock at Moose Track Adventures this past Sunday.

If you are only able to work the fish during the mid day, try finding current and looking deeper for active fish and cover a lot of water.

Also, with the warmer water temps, this brings the smallmouths up to the shallows to spawn. Look for them to be spawning on scattered rocky shorelines and eddys in a river. This will be a rarity with the smallies spawning before the Memorial Day weekend.

Don't forget this is a great time to sight fish smallmouths up in the shallows. Some great tactics this time of year for sight fishing is to pitch tubes, sanko worms or x-raps near the smallmouth’s nests.

If you are a fly-fishing fanatic, this is a great time of year to take your 5 or 7 weight off the wall and make a few casts.

The fishing should continue to get better, as this pressure front stays stable through the weekend. We are supposed to stay in the 80’s through next week with our best chances of rain coming mid week.

Good luck fishing and hope to see you on the water.

Minnesota Fishing Opener - Saturday, May 15th

The big day is finally here in Minnesota, the biggest fishing day of the year. Everybody will put their gardening and yard work to rest to get out their boat big or small only, to chase Minnesota’s marble eyed wonder the walleye. Many will wonder where the walleye will be this opener due to the early ice out and warming of the lakes. If I were to put a guess into where to find the walleye I would look for post spawn, pre summer areas.

Some of the post spawn areas are close to the walleyes’ spawning grounds. You would look at main geographic locations, such as points a few hundred feet away from a creek, the first weed lines of the season and maybe some of shallow sandy mid lake reefs. The reason for fishing some of these spots is that this is where smaller bait fish may be spawning. Ways to fish these post-spawn walleyes is very aggressive. Due to some cooler temps, you will be fishing shallow. I like to use live target perch when I am fishing weed lines. While fishing weed lines cast towards them and do a stop and go twitch with the live target lure. While fishing these early season weed lines look for pockets and inside turns of points. This is a very fast way of fishing and easy way to cover a lot of water.

If you are having a hard time finding them using those techniques, look outside of what everyone else is doing and try trolling. There are many types of trolling you can do to cover water but, one of the most under looked for this time of year is trolling crank baits. You can always use a lindy rig but, if you want more aggressive hard biting fish this is the type of fishing for you. Just like before, look for those rocky windblown points and weed lines. You will probably be fishing shallower, therefore use lures according to depth. If you are fishing in 6 feet or less, long line a Rapala original floater behind your boat (perch, black-silver or black-gold work best) in a size 12 or 14. You want to fish these fairly quick and adjust your speed from 1.5-2 mph. If you are fishing deeper a number 5 shad rap or live target perch from 7-15 will work best (same colors as above).

You can always stick to your classic presentations too, but with the early spring this year you might have to change locations to find fishing success this spring. Good luck and hope to see you out on the water this summer.

May Photo Contest - Flowers

The May Category is 'Flowers'

Our example above is a picture of morning dew on a spider web found during a canoe camping trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Post your favorite photo and you could be the winner of a Moose Track Adventures t-shirt or ball cap!

Rules:

• You must be a fan of Moose Track Adventures

• You can only enter one photo per person per monthly contest. You can enter the same photo if it did not win in a previous month
• You must be the photographer of the photo
• Please describe in the message the location of the photo
• Judging will be done by owners of Moose Track Adventures
• A fan may win once per year
• Photos must be posted by 7pm on May 31, 2010

Thank you for participating!

And the winner of our April Photo Contest is....

The winner of our April Photo Contest - 'Water': rain showers, raindrops or dew is Julie S. with her water fountain image.

Congratulations Julie!

Thanks for your participation this round - some great pictures!

We will be announcing the May photo contest subject shortly. If you would like to submit a photo in our next contest, just become a fan of Moose Track Adventures on Facebook & click on the May Event.

Esox lucis, otherwise known as the Northern Pike

We got the big main dock in the lake early this year. It went in easier then past years but with the low water it still made it no easy task - even if it is a 'roll-in' dock. The weather has been amazing to get out and work on the never ending spring 'To Do' list to open the cabins and resort. Each day we wish that we could be chasing northern pike with our fly rods in the shallow bays. We were at Moose Antler Cabin putting on a steel roof and we could see a large pike in the shallow water at the swim beach. It seems as though the pike taunt us bragging about how we can’t go fishing for them until May 15^th. Even with the warm temps and early ice out the water is still cold and that’s where this toothy critter shines.

Esox lucis, otherwise known as the Northern pike is the lone wolf of the water world in our neck of the woods. The pike is very easy to distinguish from other game fish. It has a long snake like body that has a silver back, with white spots and a white underbelly. The tail on the pike is speckled yellow and red during its spawning season and will stay a red color throughout the year. The Northern Pike can grow to 45-50 inches in length. Even the famed musky will fear the northern pike at certain times in its life. The pike can be found this time of year feeding on spawning bait fish such as perch, shiners, sunfish etc. This time of year provides excellent shallow water fishing for them until it gets too warm. The larger fish move deeper in the summer time and in some lakes the larger northerns will hang out with the lake trout. Using large spinner baits, inline spinners, or even a large sucker under a bobber on the edge of some early emerging weeds is a great way to target these fish early in the year for these ambush predators.

We will continue to carry on with our spring chores and cleaning, while Esox lucis is ambushing its prey in the shallows. We will wait till the season opens here in Minnesota in 2 weeks dreaming about catching that monster on our fly rods. If you are looking for a chance to get out and do some early spring pike fishing look towards the Minnesota-Canadian border lakes that are open for fishing Northern Pike.

Happy Trails.