The weather has cooperated. The fishing hasn’t. At least not yet.
Minnesota’s long winter and late spring has led to a slow start for Minnesota fisherman. Fishing guide Steve Carney of Steve Carney Outdoors explains that it’s been hit-and-miss trying to find both walleye and crappie.
“It’s been very frustrating,” Carney told WCCO’s Steve Thomson. “The walleyes are still up a lot of the rivers. They’re not back into the main basins yet. As we’ve talked about for the last month and a half, things are at least two weeks late.”
Carney says he hopes Memorial Weekend will jumpstart the fishing, but says he’s unsure. He says while he has found some crappies, they’ve been in and out of shallows and difficult to track. He’s been fishing mainly in the northwestern part of Minnesota which would obviously be slower to get going that lakes in southern or even central Minnesota.
“Memorial Weekend is the beginning of just tremendous fishing, but I think it might even be another week after that before it gets going,” Carney said. “We know it will get going, you just might have to be patient.”
Slow starts aren’t unusual. It can sometimes take until June for the fish to move into the main part of lakes and start to bite. Carney said he has been unsure where to go to find fish this weekend thanks to the slow start.
Another issue has been bait. Carney said he has been trapping his own shiner minnows because they have been very difficult to find in bait shops. Carney says those minnows are crucial for catching walleye early in the season.
You can hear reports from Carney every Saturday afternoon with Steve Thomson on News Talk 830 WCCO.
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