LAKE WINNIBIGOSHISH _ Forgive Gerry Albert if he gets a little excited when he catches walleyes here.
"Here's another one!" Albert shouted as he set the hook on a walleye, working to keep a tight line and run his outboard in whitecaps. "Ohhh, and I think it's a keeper!"
Big Winnie is Albert's lake, so to speak. He's the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' large lakes fisheries specialist for the huge reservoir _ 67,000 acres, 88 square miles _ northwest of Deer River.
Albert's been working on Winnie for 29 years and, when anglers are successful here, he sometimes gets the credit. When fish are hard to catch, Albert often gets the blame. In recent years, he's been getting more blame as some anglers struggled to catch keeper-size walleye.
This year, however, the lake has been "on fire" since the opener, especially for big walleyes 18 inches and up, Albert and others say. But it's also producing better numbers of keepers, below the 18- to 23-inch protected slot limit.
"It's like the good old days have come back," said Bill Heig, who owns Bowens Resort on Winnibigoshish. "The bite has been over-the-top."
Albert believes that's because the lake's infamous "stained" water is back after a two-year hiatus.
"The dark water is making it easier for people to catch fish," Albert said. The walleyes are "back in places people traditionally caught them."
