Walleye Fishing League Episode 10 – A Little Pre-Fishing Pays Off
On an afternoon that started with some nasty looking weather and heavy rain, the teams gathered at the bait shop hoping that the worst had passed. The good news was that we pulled a lake about 30 miles to the north… away from the nasty stuff. In fact, this is the same lake we fished on Friday, with mixed results. But we did find fish a couple of fish on Friday, and we had the spot prominently marked on the Lowrance.
We hit the lake, headed west and started hunting. The wind was brisk and coming straight from the west, so we started scanning the edges of some sharp drops facing west. When we hit 25 feet of water we started marking some pretty good batches of fish, so we tossed out jigs and fatheads and started working the deep edge of the drop. We got a couple of light taps, but that was about it. The fish we were marking seemed to be concentrated 4 to 10 feet from the bottom with a few holding tight to the bottom. Out of curiosity, we pulled some deep running cranks through the stacked fish, but only managed one solid smack on Junior’s. I contemplated slip bobbers for a minute, but with only a couple of hours left to fish, we decided to move to the hump where we caught our two fish on Friday.
We stuck with the jig and fathead and drifted from the west end of the hump to the east end in about 11 feet without a bite. At the east end I backed the boat into the wind and backtrolled over the spot we marked on Friday. About 10 yards past the mark I got a nice tap, let out some line, reeled up the slack and felt nothing. I gently pulled the jig and felt the tap again… gave the fish just a touch of line and set the hook. Junior scooped up a 15 inch walleye and we were on the board. We drifted back to the same mark and turned and backtrolled into the wind again and Junior set the hook on a decent fish… not five minutes after I hooked mine. A few seconds of reeling and we had a 17 inch walleye in the live well. One more drift to the east end and I picked up a 10 incher. We continued this pattern until about 9:00 without another bite. Concerned that two fish wouldn’t cut it, we started pulling shad raps across the top of the hump, then moved to the shoreline for one last pass along a line of bullrushes that has produced walleyes in the past. But our last-ditch effort produced nothing and by 9:23 we strapped everything down and headed to the landing for the verdict.
I spent some extra time putting away our raingear and strapping the boat to the trailer while the boy brought our fish over the the scale. By the time I was done, most of the boats had pulled in and I was surprised to learn that we were holding on to first place. One team came in with a 2 pound fish, beating our 17 incher be a few ounces, but our kicker fish kept us at the top. Turns out it was a pretty brutal night for most. I guess when two fish take first place it goes without saying that fishing was tough. Several small fish were caught, but only five or six boats came in with anything to weigh.
So for once, our pre-fishing paid off. The two fish we caught were within yards of the fish we caught on Friday, and on a night that was tough by every standard, it was enough. With three nights left we find ourselves about 5 points out of the fourth and final spot for the fish-offs. To get there we are most likely going to have to score high every night. Stay tuned.
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