Whether you realize it or not, today is a state holiday.
Back in nineteen hundred and seventy five, you didn’t see many people fishing inland waters in March and April. Our fishing rules were pretty restrictive in Michigan. No bass fishing until the Saturday preceding Memorial Day. No muskellunge fishing until May 15. No catch-and-release seasons. Basically, you owned fishing rods but you couldn’t use them much unless you claimed to be fishing for suckers or crappies.
No, everything was on hold back then until the (Heavenly chorus sounds) “Last Saturday In April.”
Although we now have year-round catch-and-release fishing for bass and muskellunge and several trout waters that are open year-round, today is still something of a celebration day as you can catch and keep pike, walleye and trout pretty much anywhere in the Lower Peninsula. (Sorry, U.P. anglers, your dates are two weeks later – but from the looks of the webcams, you still have some ice issues in places).
So, let’s get out there and celebrate our fishing freedom. What follows are tips for catching trout, pike and walleye.
Trout
Ahh trout, the supermodels of the fish world. They do make the Chamber of Commerce brochures prettier, don’t they? Unfortunately, if you want to catch them on most trout openers, you’re going to have to get down and dirty. No, your 72-piece Orvis dry fly assortment won’t likely help you today.
We’re gonna talk worms. But first, a digression: When I was a kid one of my favorite books on my dad’s shelves was a book of mean-spirited cartoons called “To Hell With Fishing.” The premise of the book was that worm anglers were second-class anglers to be sneered at, frowned upon and mocked at every opportunity.
Well, guess what? Worm fishermen are people, too. And this weekend, they’re the people with the full creels.
Here’s the setup for trout fishing today. Make sure to take good notes. One 1/8 ounce (or smaller) split-shot sinker and one No. 8 hook. OK, did you get all that? Did you want me to repeat it? Do you want to read it back to me?
Seriously, it’s not hard to catch trout with worms once you figure out their preferred haunts. I prefer red worms, but some people like full nightcrawlers. Hook them through the nose end once and start flipping them toward dark pockets, wood, rocks, undercut banks and overhanging branches. Ideally you want to cast them to the upstream side of cover and then let them drift through on a semi-tight line. Most of your strikes at this time of year will be of the “WHAMMO” variety rather than subtle sips and tugs. Bring lots of hooks and sinkers because you’re going to get broken off in the woody debris – but on that note, please clean up any monofilament line you see at every opportunity – whether you cast it there or not. We as anglers need to protect our resources and maintain our reputation as good stewards of our public land and waters.
Spinners are also a viable option this time of year. Truth be told, my preference is to fish spinners for brook trout, but that’s a technique that’s a little better in the stained waters north of here. However, if you do choose to fish spinners, I suggest using silver in bright conditions, copper or gold blades in overcast conditions and some of the louder yellow-and-red Panther Martin spinner blades when it’s raining, about to rain or post-rainstorm.
I am a fan of Panther Martins in general because they just seem to spin with less effort than spinners made with clevises. I also like Rooster Tail spinners in faster current. I am not a big fan of small French-blade spinners. They foul better than they fish, in my experience. (However, the larger ones are fine pike lures, read on …)
Fly fishing on the opener can be productive, but you’re most likely going to have to fish with a beaded nymph of some kind or a streamer pattern. I’m not a dedicated fly angler. I can cast and I love to fish dry flies when the timing is right, but it seriously is not yet. It may be worth a call to the fly shops to see if any of the drake patterns are producing yet, but my guess is you’re going to be envious of the meat-flingers.
Pike
Well guess what kind of weather we have in store for today? If you guessed cold front, you are correct. Your prize is that you will have to work a little harder for your pike today.
Pike are sensitive to cold fronts – more likely they are sensitive to the bright conditions that follow a cold front. Being ambush predators, pike like it dark and shadowy. Well, with no weeds grown in yet and no clouds, your job is to lure pike from their belly-to-the-bottom funk.
So where you might think of burning No. 4 and No. 5 Mepps spinners over their heads, you might want to consider slow-rolling a spinnerbait or working a Dardevle spoon or even a Johnson Silver Minnow. Another great option would be a bladed jig or chatterbait fished with intermittent pauses and drops.
My advice is to look for slightly dirtier water – and given our recent rain that’s probably going to mean rivers or inlets on our lakes.
Remember that pike are ambush predators. There are some great underwater videos of this on YouTube. They will follow below and behind a lure and wait for any kind of inconsistency – anything they perceive as a weakness.
This also makes this time of year good for jerkbaits or minnow baits. Instead of trolling them along steadily, though, consider casting them with lots of jerks and pauses. If you have to troll, make sure to goose the throttle intermittently to impart more erratic action to your lures.
Walleye
I’m not a walleye expert, but I’ve fished with enough seasoned semi-professionals and pros to know a thing or two. Walleyes are not entirely nocturnal, but on a day like today is forecast to be, you’re going to be better off fishing low-light periods.
The lack of weed growth makes for easier trolling at this time of year, so you’re going to want to set a spread of minnow baits out behind planer boards and just cover water. I’m partial to the Yeck boards modeled after the old Tru Trac boards for calm water at this time of year. If it gets wavy, get some larger boards out. If you haven’t looked into it in recent years, there are a number of nice LED lighting systems available for your planer boards. You’ll want some red and some green so that you can tell which side is which. Put the green-lit boards on your starboard and the red boards on your port side just like your bow light. Alternatively, you can pick up some reflective tape and swing a flashlight behind the boat intermittently to make sure your boards are behaving.
Although jigging is all the rage in the Detroit River, we haven’t developed a reliable jigging fishery in the Pere Marquette Channel or the Manistee River Channel to my knowledge. You’d probably want 3/4-ounce or 1-ounce jigheads with some soft-plastic worms if you were to try. You can also add live minnows and stinger hooks if you would like.
