I was joined today by three guests on a Lake Wissota walleye hunt. We had a so-so walleye day...a molasses slow morning followed by a reasonable afternoon. Decent afternoon numbers of slot fish and shorts, although the "overs" eluded us today.
Some of the trip highlights included the two 40"-class fish we had boatside. Mike Whittlinger hooked a small walleye about 5 minutes into the trip, which was promptly torpedoed by a 40"-class Wissota musky. Everyone had a chance to see it wallow and roll a few times before spitting out the tattered, quivering walleye and swimming away.
A few hours later, Ryan hooked a big rock that started to move. Well, 10-15 minutes later, we slid the Beckman under this Wissota supertanker flathead. 40" long and just shy of 35 pounds, this is the biggest cat that this walleye guy has been around in a long time. A few quick snaps with Ryan and the gang, and back she went.
Ryan didn't muscle this fish in with a crankbait and trolling gear. Rather, this Wissota flathead took a 1/8 oz Draggin Jig and a half-crawler, dragged over shallow rock in moderate current. Our ability to land this fish is a testament to the quality of the B-Fish-N tackle Draggin Jig (check out the cat slime still on the line!), the strength of the Cortland 8 lb hi-vis mono we're spooled up with (thanks Dean!), the quality of our St. Croix Legend Tournament 68MXF rods, and the smooth drags on our Shimano Symetre reels. Everything must work PERFECTLY to have a chance to land such an oversized, under-tackled fish, and all of this equipment performed flawlessly for us this afternoon.
And Ryan did a good job fighting her, too!
Congrats on your Wissota PB flathead Ryan....we'll shoot for a PB walleye next time out. 
There is a GREAT leadcore bite in progress out on Pepin!
I had a chance to take two of my graduating students out for the afternoon today. Our rain-shortened 4-hour trip ended with 9 nice 16-20" fish for the box, a thick 22" sauger released, and a bunch of shorts, goats, and stripers. Katie and Jon are shown here with a couple of 19-20" walleyes that they harvested for an upcoming graduation celebration.
There is fantastic water clarity in the middle-lower end of the lake.....I'd say in the neighborhood of 4 feet. That pushed our most active bite into 20-22', even with solid overcast, rain, and steady wind and rollers. Bright colors, 2.5-3 mph, in areas with good wind/wave action rolling in.
With temps just reaching 70, this bite should keep on gaining steam for a several weeks yet. Get out and enjoy!
Sometimes the simplest things make walleye fishing a little easier.
Competing in the FLW Walleye League event last week on Leech Lake made me dependent on my 60" Drift Control Wave Tamer to slow my Skeeter WX 1880 to a reasonable presentation speed in 20-30 mph winds and 3-4' waves. Under these conditions, my 60" Wave Tamer would slow the Skeeter down to a very nice 0.7-0.9 mph. Several days of drifting shallow flats so we could jig or rig meant lots of deployments and retrievals of my Drift Control drift sock.
One thing that I did to make my life easier (and easier on my co-angler partner on game day) was to make the spill line for my Drift Control a different color from the main line. You can see in the photo below that the main line to the bag is white, but the spill line is black. With two different color lines, you remove the guesswork from figuring out which line will spill the bag. In my case, black to spill, white to retrieve. With a little forethought, walleye fishing can be as easy as black and white.
For more information on Drift Control products, check out this link.
I had a chance to spend a few days up on Leech Lake last week, preparing for and then competing in the FLW Walleye League event. It was my first trip ever to Leech, and it won't be my last.
During the pre-fishing period, I concentrated on relatively shallow water, 8-12 feet deep, in wind-blown areas. It wasn't hard to find those, believe me, with winds in the 20-30 mph range, gusting to 40 on Thursday. We were able to catch fish drifting jigs, live bait rigging and pulling spinners. My best bite for keeper fish (14-18") was on spinners, so that's what I decided to do on game day.
My co-angler Chad and I spent our day pulling harnesses behind bottom bouncers: 1.5 oz bouncers, speed 1.2-1.5, depth 10-13 feet. Our shallow bites fizzled out a bit since the wind was no longer pouring in to my pre-fishing areas, but moving deeper into some emerging weeds allowed us to contact the fish again.
We ended up weighing a tournament limit of 15-17" fish, which gave us some good points towards the championship but didn't put is in contention for the $$. With only two days of prep and no prior experience on the lake, I devoted my time to developing a numbers bite, rather than trying to swing for the fences. So, while our finish was nothing special, I am happy that I was able to find a reasonable tournament limit with just a short amount of preparation.
The photo above is one of the many 20-24" fish we caught pre-fishing and on game day. Beautiful fish, but given Leech's 18-26" protected slot, these didn't do us a lick of good on game day.
Thanks to my partner Jason Sullivan, my pre-fishing guest Dave Vollmer, and IDO staffer Ron "Sliderfishn" Bukovich for their help in preparing for and fishing in the tournament. For now, back to guiding...and then on to Bemidji in July!
I was joined today by three guests on a Lake Wissota walleye hunt. We had a so-so walleye day...a molasses slow morning followed by a reasonable afternoon. Decent afternoon numbers of slot fish and shorts, although the "overs" eluded us today.
