1st Open Water Fish of 2010

Wide open is the description of all the lakes I looked at today except Mille Lacs. Shakopee open, Bulldog open, Rock open, and yes even Sullivan open.

My day started out with a trip to Onamia to pick up meds and check to see if the suckers were running in the Rum River just North of Shakopee Lake. Do you see any suckers in this picture:

If you do your eye sight is better than mine. The river was empty, therefore sucker fishing was out. I went to Subway for lunch and came back, still no sign of suckers. I hung out for about an hour and no suckers so I headed home.

I got out to the GOMH around 2PM and there was no bullhead action. So next I headed over to check out Bulldog then to the Rock Lake public access. No surprise the Rock Dock was not in the water yet, maybe tomorrow. The Rock access has been known to cough out fish even before the ice gets off the lake, so that is where I set up for the afternoon. Unfortunately for the fishing it was overcast and hazy for most of the afternoon keeping the shallows from heating up. The sky's started to clear a bit around 4:30 and sure enough my bobber went down and I caught my first open water fish of the year.
It went 17 inches.

A little bit later the sky's cleared up and a small school of little bass, a few sunfish, and a couple of crappies swam right up to me and then just as soon as they were there were gone. Didn't even get a bite. A little while later the bobber went down and my lure went bye bye. Stupid Pike!!! I fished until after 7 and occasionally there were sign's of fish swimming around, but I couldn't get any more bites.

I headed to the GOMH and Willard was sitting in his mini van and a guy, lady, and kid were fishing off the bridge and on the SW side. Willard informed me they had not caught anything and were fishing with minnows. I talked to Willard for about 15 minutes then headed over to the SE side which was open. While I was fishing CO Kuske and another CO showed up and did a fishing licence check. As the CO's were leaving I swear I got a bite on my drop shot power minnow but it got off right away. Felt like a silver bullhead. That was it for action at the GOMH tonight.