Courts has a bias toward the Mississippi River when he can't be on one of Minnesota's big lakes.

"The Mississippi is a busy place from the middle of March until opener," Courts said, "but after opening day, those fishermen head to the lakes, and the river pressure drops 80 to 90 percent. The funny thing is, that river is still providing some of the best walleye fishing in the state."

Courts said the river will tell you where the fish are, based on the rising and falling water levels.

"After a rain when that river is rising, you can bet those walleyes will be moving to the shoreline cover," Courts said. "Anywhere there is some downed timber, a wing dam, some riprap, an eddy going into a backwater area -- this is where those fish are when the river is rising.

"When the water levels are dropping," he continued, "those walleyes will move out to the channel areas. This is when I'm working the bottom cuts on a turn or the front side of a dropoff or wing dam. The back sides of mid-river islands are great when the water is dropping."

Courts said the angler who masters the typical river techniques, such as three-way swivel rigging and vertical jigging, will load up on walleyes through the season.

Roach has some favorite small lakes. He calls them, "my babies," and because he's been fishing these lakes around the Brainerd region for the past 50 years, he knows every little bump and hole that holds walleyes.

"Just look at Upper Hay Lake," Roach said. "This lake gets stocked with a lot of walleyes, and there is some great structure there for a lake that's only 500 acres. These lakes are all over the state and they're great places to go because there are walleyes all over those humps."

Roach has his own special bait presentation for these smaller bodies of water. It's called, of course, the Roach Rig.

"It's an adjustable live-bait rig," Roach explained, "and it's the way 80 percent of the walleyes in Minnesota are caught, because it works so well."

Roach said to make sure you have a good supply of both leeches and night crawlers on hand when fishing one of his "babies."