It's one of my favorite times to fish Oahe. Early spring when the air is still crisp, the water is still cold, the walleyes are on the move, and after a long, cold winter it feels good to be out on the open water.

A couple of years ago I was out on Oahe in April with Tim Lesmeister, a writer and photographer who has been on many trips with me. Tim had never been on the big reservoir this early in the season and expected a slow bite. Let's just say he brought his pillow along anticipating an afternoon nap.

We launched the boat and motored up the Cheyenne River looking for walleyes making the spawning run. In the spring Oahe walleyes can be found in all the creek arms either heading in to spawn or coming back from the spawning ritual.

These walleyes will follow the shoreline structure as they migrate and it's no trick to finding them. Just look on the points and rubble piles along the shallow hard-bottomed shoreline regions.

When we searched for fish it was with Firetiger Shad Raps trolled on six pound test XT. Tim worked the shoreline side of the boat with a number seven and I worked the outside with a number nine.

I started catching fish right away so Tim started whining that I was keeping all the fish to myself. I gave him a number nine and moved him a little deeper and he too started catching fish.

The walleyes were just a couple feet off the bottom in 12 feet of water. As soon as you would see a rise on the sonar signalling a point, hold on because there were fish there and they were biting.

As the morning started pushing into afternoon the bite slowed down. We went back to some of the best points and switched to a bottom bouncer with a two foot snell and just a plain hook and minnow.

There was just enough wind to push us slowly over the fish that had moved out a little deeper. We caught a few more to add to our bragging rights.

Oahe walleyes are funny. Just when you think you have them patterned they do something crazy. As noon approached and the sun was reaching its peak, you would expect the fish to keep moving deeper. All of a sudden they were gone from the screen and we couldn't find them in deeper water.

Our only option was to try shallower water and sure enough they were there. The walleyes had found a school of minnows in eight feet of water and we got to them with an eighth-ounce FireBall jig with a two-inch Power Grub body and we tipped this rig with a minnow.

You would cast the jig up towards the shoreline, give it a six count and then use a steady retrieve to bring it back. Some of the boats trolling out behind us were wondering what we were doing until they saw the rods bend. One guy trolled real close to us to see what was going on and ended up losing both his lures in snags.

By the way, Tim got his nap. Just past two in the afternoon, even with the fish biting, he layed down on the front deck and snoozed for an hour. Even when I yelled for the net after hooking a big fish all he did was roll over and keep snoring. I landed the eight pounder and showed it to him when he woke. All he said was, "There you go Roach, still keeping all the good ones for yourself." I told him to go back to sleep as I set the hook on another early spring Oahe walleye.