This is our first fishing report of the 2018 season and we are excited to report that the fishing quality has started off in tremendous fashion.  We have said many times in the past that posting multiple fishing reports during the season starts to get redundant in what we state regarding the quantity and size of fish caught.  This year is starting out no different than previous years with an incredible number of Walleye and Pike caught each day and the size of fish are on the larger size, respectively speaking.  We maybe could even say that the size of fish might be slightly larger than previous seasons at this time.

Ice-out was around May 8 which is around normal for this latitude but what wasn’t normal was the dryness of the bush and the very low water levels.  They had somewhat normal snow levels this past winter but we did not get any Spring rains in April or May which is what we really need to keep lake levels normal throughout the year.  We had a fire ban starting in early May but since that time, we have had a couple inches of rain so we are holding our own for lake levels, and the fire ban has since been lifted.

The weather patterns we have had since early May have been quite extreme.  We started early May with warm dry temps and it stayed like that until our first week of fishing.  On May 29 we had a storm squall come through for about 15 minutes with high winds and hail, and immediately after, the temperature dropped from 80’s to 40’s. The temperature stayed that way for about a week and then started to climb back to normal in the 70’s.  The good news was that fishing did not suffer one bit with all of the changes in weather patterns.

In the initial part of the season, Walleye and Pike were along the sand bars where weeds and reeds normally grow.  This lasted for a few days and as the water temps started to warm up, Walleye moved out on to not only weed lines but rock edges.   Fast forwarding on to this week, we are starting to see some Walleyes on stand alone reefs.  This is the fun time when we start to fish all patterns such as weeds, rock, sand, etc.

We are getting close to finishing our third week of the season and already we have a couple 30 plus inch Walleyes caught, and numerous 40 plus inch Pike.  Just as an example, we have one group of 4 fishermen here this week and they have had one day where they caught slightly over 300 Walleyes.  They fished with our guide Mike that day and he always finds fish and lots of them. Their larger Walleyes have been 26-28 inches and they also have 2 Pike over 40 inches with many in the 35 – 39 inch range.  At the end of the 300 Walleye day, one of the gentleman in their group stated to me, and I quote,  “no one is going to believe me when I get home and tell them of what we caught today”.  I told him it is the same scenario when Linda and I go to Sport Shows and mention these kind of numbers and size.  Potential guests all believe we are Pinocchio with a long nose telling those kinds of non-truths.   We told our guest the same thing that we tell potential new guests at Sport Shows, come find out for yourself.

The bait of choice for Walleyes has been our frozen minnows tipped on our gold or chartreuse glitter jigs but Leeches and Nightcrawlers are not too far behind.  Leeches and Crawlers tend to work better on sunny days but the bottom line (excuse the pun) is that they all catch fish.

Pike are being caught regularly on Rattle Trap crank baits and also spoons. Cleo spoons are a good choice but 5 of diamonds and daredevils are still the traditional bait to have on hand.

Well, that is all for now.   We will try and post again in a couple of weeks but it might sounds slightly redundant.  Just sayin.

We encourage questions and comments to this post.  Communication is what catches the most fish.  Lets hear from you.

Stormer Lake Lodge