jallen, Last year my first trip out was Mar. 27. There's no specific day,but more about water temp. and weather conditions that matter. My rule of thumb is ... if it's nice out go fishing,but that doesn't mean there ready to bite. You will catch fish early season, but you can have long cold days of fishing. An easy way to know when to get on the lake is watch the reports from the guys snagging on the maumee river bragging about getting limits...wait a week and it's on! I like to fish the real shallow the first few weeks until the lake warms a little.