It’s river rat szn! And in honor of folks finally getting back out on the water here’s one of the most ridiculous, egg-filled walleyes I’ve seen in recent years.

It was caught by Brian Larsen while fishing with Muddy Waters Guide Service on the Mississippi River. She went 29” long x WOW” girth – looks ready to pop!

Released so she could go drop the kids off at daycare.

Btw Muddy Waters Guide Service’s pre-spawn walleye trips have been completely booked for months…despite folks not being able to keep any fish. From here:

> “Our Pre-Spawn trips are 100% catch and release across the board on all fish. It’s pretty awesome that we blacked out our whole Pre-Spawn calendar for 8hr-12hr trips and we will be releasing every walleye and sauger that hits the net this spring! It’s also pretty awesome to realize there are that many sportsman out there that are willing to help protect our fisheries for generations to come. Our hats are off to all of you that are coming along with us for the Pre-Spawn Walleye Run this year!”

Love that. And yup, folks will still play golf even tho they can’t eat the golf balls….

Turns out if you drive far enough north they actually have a winter. I’ve put a couple hundred miles on my Polaris Titan Adventure 155 this season (thx to its cooling system with radiator) and this is basically the first time it’s seeing actual snow which is WAY more fun than riding on bare ice lol!

We had an eventful first day ice fishing for lake trout on Athapapuskow Lake out of Bakers Narrows Lodge in northern Manitoba! I do my best to give you a little glimpse into all of the adventure in our newest video on Target Walleye’s YouTube channel – and there’s some curveballs – I hope you dig it!

Crazy enough they’ll still be ice fishing for another month up there this season! Oh, and we’re hitting back-country walleyes next….

Have you ever been scrolling thru social media and seen where someone posted a recent satellite image of a lake or river? Usually when folks are checking ice-up or ice-out conditions. Sometimes looking for mud lines or where the cleanest water is on big water like Lake Erie:

Anytime I share one in Target Walleye, I get flooded with folks asking where and how:

Don’t worry – I’ve gotchu.

There’s a handful of sites, I usually use a free one called MODIS Today, which kicks out:

> “Near real-time and archived high resolution, true color MODIS images over the USA acquired from the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites.”

Basically once a day they (usually) upload satellite imagery from above. The tough part is if it was cloudy, you’re basically not going to see anything. It’s a little clunky to use, but it can be reeeeally fun to snoop after a clear, sunshiny day.

As you can see, wer’e finally open for biz here in central MN thanks to a few days of heavy winds:

You see that white stuff along the east and southeast corner of Mille Lacs in the pic above? This FB post from Jonathan Sampson will give you a better idea of why you can see it from space:

Sheesh!

– That line ^ is from a pretty funny Kim Fundingsland write-up tackling a topic I’ve spent more time thinking about than I’d like to admit. Makes my brain hurt:

Reminds me of the never-ending “musky” vs “muskie” debate:

Still, IMO “muskie” is a fish and “musky” is a smell….

1. WI: Real-time HD fish cam on the Wolf River.

In case the boss is wondering about your recent drop in productivity haha! There’s a few different cameras you can cycle thru at the top. I hopped on the “Shiocton 1” camera for all of 4 seconds before typing this and had this dude giving me the stink eye lol:

This is the 16th season of Wolf River Cam – created by lifelong Shiocton resident Gary Bunnell. Full scoop on how it came to be here.

2. WI: Merc National tourney happenin’ June 8-9.

Registration opened up on Mar 11 (believe they fill up with 300 teams every year) for the 46th-annual derby on Lake Winnebago.

Last year: Father/son duo Joe and Joseph Robl’s 2-day total (10 fish) of 29 lbs took home the top spot = a Lund 1875 Impact XS with a Mercury 150 Pro XS and Mercury 9.9 Pro Series Kicker + $5K cash.

Heard it was the biggest day-2 comeback in the history of the event. It sounded like they were trolling shallow-ish rock in 11-12′. No doubt a memory that will last a lifetime – congrats again, fellas!

3. OH: Lake Erie Walleye Trail (LEWT) kicks off Mar 30.

Their first event of the year is outta Magee East Marina in Oak Harbor.

Then on Apr 20 they have a “Casting/Jigging OPEN” (aka no trolling is allowed) Lake Erie derby – pretty fun idea!

4. MN: Tom Boley’s speaking at the St. Cloud Scheels, Apr 5.

Costs $10 to attend his “Walleye Anywhere Anytime” seminar.

I believe he’ll also be speaking at the Appleton, Eden Prairie and Fargo locations…I just haven’t seen the dates posted for those yet.

5. MN: Killer Rainy River lodging deal.

If you’re heading up to the Rainy River soon-ish, I just saw that Border View Lodge has a lodging special going on for just $49 per night, per person. Solid deal! You won’t find it on their website, it says you’ve gotta give the front desk a call at 800-776-3474 to get in on it.

6. You spooling up for the season yet?

I know I’ve said it many times before, but one gadget EVERY fish-head should own is the Berkley Line Stripper Max – it attaches to a cordless drill so you can peel off a pile of line right quick, which is the worst part of re-spooling. Serious time-saver and actually makes me look forward to the job:

They always seem to be sold-out, so do yourself a favor and snipe one early if you can find one. Looks like FishUSA has a half dozen in stock and Berkley’s website must have recently been re-loaded.

7. ND: You don’t always need a boat to catch walleyes….

Many consider Devils Lake, ND to be the walleye shore-fishing capital of the world, and guess what? The season never closes. #Jackpot

DL is one of the few walleye factories (that’s not a river) where the walleye season is open during pre-spawn and spawn. Male walleyes are the first to show up shallow when the water begins to climb into the low- to mid-40s.

More info here if you’re looking for an early-spring road trip.

8. The biggest, baddest battery you can fit in a FFS shuttles.

Amped Outdoors has a new 52Ah Lithium Battery (14.8V NMC) that replaced their 48Ah NMC battery. It’s the exact same size, just higher capacity! #MoPowaBaby

> Highest capacity battery to fit Garmin Bag in the industry today! Our new 52Ah (769.6Wh) 14.8V NMC Lithium Ion Battery is the highest capacity and longest lasting battery designed specifically for our advanced fishing electronics of today. Running out of power is no longer an issue when running high current electronics of today.

> Why 14.8V NMC Lithium Ion? Since most of our fishing electronics today are made to operate up to 17+ volts, this battery has a working voltage of 16.8V when fully charged and 12V when fully depleted. That means you have the most usable capacity and zero worries of low voltage poor returns/images from your electronics.

> Unlike the competition selling similar NMC batteries (Usually 11.1V), our batteries use only the best NMC Lithium from Japan. Instead of getting 300-400 charge cycles with NMC from others, Amped Outdoors NMC will give you 800-1000 Charge cycles and a longer life expectancy.

> This model is the same size as the 30Ah LiFePO4 Amped Outdoors Battery. Will fit all Garmin Livescope/Panoptix products!

Speaking of which…

9. Gotta give BIG props to Amped Outdoors!

I’ve never had to use their customer service (which is wild) but I’ve heard it’s absolutely top notch. I’ve had nothing but incredible results running multiple Amped lithiums over the last 5-6 years.

Started out using one of their 10Ah batteries to actually get a full fishing day out of an Aqua Vu HD 10i Pro…then upgraded my Vexilar battery…then a 30Ah wide for the original LiveScope Ice Bundle…onto NMCs in my big-screen units…and finally last spring installed Amped trolling motor and accessory batteries in my boat.

All of the above have blown it out of the water and still in use today, I could not be more impressed or happy. By far the best upgrades I have made to any of my systems. Thank YOU Amped fam for crushing it!

10. Skeeter announces new WXR2060 model.

11. Sportsman’s Warehouse announces new executive leadership.

12. How to choose the best oil for frying fish.

I had this exact predicament when I was in the grocery store the other day LOL….

When in doubt, canola it out?

Where to find post-spawn walleyes on “fishing opener.”

One big key is knowing where they spawned, and where they’re headed next. A few excerpts below from this throwback AnglingBuzz write-up:

> “Walleyes typically spawn once water temps reach the mid-40s. The exact number will vary from lake to lake, but it’s generally 44-48 F.

> “Walleyes tend to go back to their old spawning grounds year after year, so once you figure out where they’re dumping their eggs, you’ll have some valuable info you can rely on for years to come.

> “Depending where you’re fishing, walleyes will either spawn on main-lake shorelines, or in feeder rivers/creeks. This tends to be on some form of shallow rock or gravel in 3-6′.

> “Look for shallow-water structure between those spawning grounds and some of your favorite main-lake summertime spots.”

They didn’t forget about you river rats either:

Keep reading here for more deets on baits and presentations.

“You’ve been warned.”

– That’s Josh McFaddin’s perfect caption under this pic he took of a perky, Lake Winnipeg greenback:

Good news: Tourney SZN is coming in hot!

Bad news: Entry fees are coming in even hotter.

Tho it will be nice to get back into the swing of things with some friendly competition!

It’s pretty rare to see a non-cliche sunset fishing pic (when ya don’t catch ’em lol) but I managed to find one…. Incredibly paunchy shot of Tanner Wulfekuhle shipping some Lake Winnipeg green back. #ReturnToSender

Straight-up glorious!!!

Thanks SO much for reading! Back at ya in a couple.

National Professional Anglers Assoc.

MN-FISH

Target Walleye LLC

422 Laurel Street

P.O. BOX 541

Brainerd, MN 56401

 (218) 824 5026