Blue skies, a walleye chop and warmer temperatures than most fishing openers. It was one of those weekends that will live in the back of our memory when the snow piles up in January. The 2012 fishing opener was chamber of commerce perfect in most every way — except there were no reports of stringers filled with walleyes. Oh well, it was great to be back out on the water going after the state’s most coveted fish.

Thursday and Friday evening the main arteries of central Minnesota were clogged with schools of anglers trying to get to their favorite fishing hole. Traffic was backed up along 210 and 371 most of Friday afternoon.

On Gull, near Bar Harbor, anxious anglers put their watercraft in and eased through the no-wake zone out onto the main lake to put their boat’s engines through the paces before the midnight start of the season. Even the Common Loons that had been swimming around the lagoon were somehow privy to what was about to happen. They dove only to surface a few yards away from oncoming boat traffic, calling out as they emerged.

According to reports from the governor’s opening reports on Twin Cities’ television stations, there was no success in the governor’s entourage during the first stint that began at midnight Saturday morning. Gov. Mark Dayton was not skunked though — by his own admission he landed a pan fish in his second attempt after a morning break.

Were there winners in the opener? You bet. He’s on our front page! Nine-year-old Silas Wingert of Pillager landed a northern pike that he hefted up for our photographer opening day. That was worth the entire weekend of fishing for that young man.

It was a great weekend for fishing, bicycling, dinner on the lake’s edge or just being in the heart of lake country.

—Keith Hansen