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The way the weather has been for the Last few days, I’d swear that spring has as arrived, even though We have thirty-five days of the winter left.

When there’s nice weather and not too much wind, I see boats stopping at Stop N. Go, Hartington Ne. when they stop to pick up their lunches and bait.

With the arrival of spring, anglers will be chomping at the bit to get on the water.

As the water opens up, allowing anglers to get their boats in and below the Missouri River dams; Gavin’s Point, Ft. Randall, Big Bend and Oahe Dam, walleye anglers will have all they need in order to pursue walleye during the 2023 fishing season.

Walleyes have been on the move since late fall, swimming upstream into their spawning areas.

This is the time of the year to catch that wall-hanger walleye you’ve been looking for as the fish are stacked up below the dams with the females as big as they’ll ever be, carrying their eggs along with their fat reserves.

In late winter, early spring, everything is slow underwater, so slow and easy is the name of the game this time of the year, when things move slowly, the water is cold as is the walleye’s metabolism.

This time of the year, smaller is better, when it comes to baits, as walleye have a lot of time to check out your bait and anything that doesn’t seem natural or right will turn them off quickly.

This is when you don’t want to be using a method that doesn’t fit the season, one of the best Live bait rigs, you should use is just be a small split shot, smaller hook and minnow that’s just enough to get your bait to the bottom where the walleye will be roaming.

Other tackle that helps you catch fish this time of the year, include light low visibility line, this is when I never go over eightpound mono, and have several other rods rigged with lighter four or six pond test.

I start with my 8-pound mono line and if you see fish on you locator, but get no response, I’ll switch to my lighter lines to see if that makes a difference or I may try my one rod rigged with lighter line, that had a couple of feet of fluorocarbon line on the end where you’d tie your hook.

What you don’t want to do is to have too much of anything that’s not natural down there, any terminal tackle and if you feel you need a snap or swivel, I’d use a very small one.

As this month rolls into March in many areas, a good percentage, where the walleyes have moved towards or into their spawning grounds, where you’ll start to find them moving around more and becoming more aggressive.

In the river, the water below the dams, may have been free of ice throughout winter, allowing boat anglers their first opportunity, during the end of winter and spring open water fishing opportunities.

There are several walleye patterns during early spring, these fish will generally set up out of current, in the calmer water, where they can rest and not have to fight the current, still having the ability to take advantage of the good feeding opportunities that’s available in these locations.

Those fish generally set up along the edges, adjacent the faster current, with most of the walleyes will be upstream run that the walleyes made, using up much of their excess energy, eventually be forced to feed more actively.

Because the walleyes will be located in calmer areas, slowly drifting a live minnow rig or a smaller minnow tipped jig through these locations is a great method for catching walleyes.

Once you’ve located the fish, you may want to set up on them, working your bait vertically. You may have to switch baits until you figure out what bait the fish want, don’t worry about trying to match your bait to exactly what the fish are after, a jig baited with a minnow, or Northland’s Puppet Minnow as well as a Rapala Jigging Rap fished like a jig just off the bottom on or just off the bottom keeping your bait in front of the fish will result in bites. If your locator indicates that the fish are suspend targeting a baitfish species using that area, your best luck will be fishing out of the current with a floating jig head rigged under a slip bobber works very well.

As mentioned earlier, by using lighter line, you can get a smaller jig, 1/16th of an ounce tipped with a minnow down and into the depth the fish are holding.

This time of the year the “Name of the Game” is smaller is better and with good boat control you can set on top of the walleyes and even if they’re not hungry, irritate them into biting.

Every day we’re closer to open water and all of the fishing opportunities that will be available, so as we’re in that in between season, Ice and open water, get your boat ready and we might just see you on the river.