Fishing Report April 2017

April 10 - 17, 2017

The ice went off Woman Lake on Monday, April 10th about 12-14 days earlier than typical.  The open water fishing season is finally upon us.  The MN DNR has set up the nets (trap) for their walleye egg stripping operation on the Boy River a hundred yards downstream from the County Road 5 bridge.  Our walleyes started coming into the river to spawn on Wednesday night (4/12/17) and they have been coming in strong every night for the past 5 days.  The walleyes will continue to run for another 5-6 days or so, but the stripping operation will stop as soon as they collect their assigned 2017 quota of eggs (220 quarts).  If you want to watch the process of sorting the fish from the nets, stripping the eggs from the females, mixing it with the "milk" from the male walleyes, and preparing the fertilized eggs for transport to the hatchery - stop on down at 8:00 AM when the DNR Fisheries staff get started.  The whole operation is quite fascinating and you will not believe the numbers and huge sizes of the walleyes in Woman Lake.  I have downloaded a few photos of this year's stripping operation onto the "Catch Photos" section of this website, but I would encourage you to visit the site in person this week, before they wrap it up.

The 2017 walleye fishing opener is coming on May 13th, but in the meantime, we are catching slab black crappies in the shallow black bottom bays and harbors where the water temperatures are 5-10 degrees warmer than the main lake basins.  The water temperature on the lake we fished Saturday was 47 degrees at 10:00 AM, but in the shallow bay we fished, we found water temperatures as warm as 57 degrees.  This temperature difference triggers crappies, bluegills, bass, and northerns to come into these warmer bays, and the fishing can be quite productive.  Three of us caught 30 crappies in the 11-13 inch range in a few hours, and not much tastes better than a big, batter coated, pan fried crappie filet.

Come on up north, the fishing season is now in full swing.  If you are interested in using a fishing guide service for your trip, feel free to give me call and get your trip dates reserved on my calendar.  My contact information for ObeWan Guide Service is listed elsewhere on this website.  Good Luck, and Good Fishing !!!

Jeff Oberman - ObeWan Guide Service

cell 952-334-0115