Hey all,
As you surely know, the water temps are on the rise and that always bodes well for fishing (up to a point of course). I fished yesterday from 10 am until 3 pm. No bites for the first two hours and then, after switching to a tube bait, it was fairly constant action. The smallies were responding to a pretty aggressive swimming type of retrieve (lift, fall, reel, repeat). When they hit, there was no question about it, wham!, fish on. Often times, on a second rod, I'll have a nightcrawler rig hanging down in the water about mid depth and that was getting hit in the afternoon as well. In about 2 hours, I caught and released 12 smallies, from 11 to 15". Nothing to write home about, but good solid little footballs none the less.
Like many of you, I also am looking for the walleyes to come out of their post pardom spawn depression, which should be any week now. May should shape up to be really consistent fishing as it always seems to be. Until then, good luck!