Spawn

The annual walleye opener has come again this year, with last year myself marking the catch of the biggest walleye I’ve ever caught before. The female walleye laden with its spawn eggs was over eight pounds. It was also the first day that I caught some saugeyes, which I have never really had any opportunities of catching because I don’t live near any huge amounts of water like the Mississippi, which was what I was fishing on last year for the 2008 walleye opener. The ice has almost completely melted off and the water is beginning to warm up once again, and this means one thing for fisherman all across America… the spawn! And the precursor to the much warmer spawn cycles of largemouth bass, crappies and catfish is the spawn of the walleye. This spawn is so hard to pinpoint as the spring weather unpredictability has such a major impact on the walleye’s at this time. Only the elite walleye fisherman is able to pattern these highly sought after fish with consistent success, and humbly I must say I’m not among that number.

This year over spring break, which is next week for me (!), I know I will be trying my luck at some pre- spawning walleyes on the dam of Pleasant Creek lake north of Palo and I will also get the boat out for some hopefully good walleye action on some rocky points, hidden brush piles, and on the causeway of Ponderosa lake near Montezuma. It doesn’t take too long to know if whether the spawn is occurring or if it is still too early. But I do know that the walleye do spawn awfully early and in some very frigidly, cold water in Iowa and I hope that I can catch a couple of walleyes. Besides for the catfish feeding frenzy right after ice- out not many other species will bite at this time, except sometimes for some absolutely lunker largemouth bass, which I was fortunate of catching one time either two or three years ago right after the ice melted off of a very small southern Iowa pond if I do recall correctly.

However now I really want to be able to get at least a couple of these walleyes for the frying pan, as long as they are not an egg- laden female. Of course, I will not object to catching and battling one of these huge walleyes and taking a few pictures of it to put onto the blog for you all to see. In the meantime good luck, good fishing, and I’ll see you out on the lake.