WalligatorGetter
05-15-2010, 07:41 PM
Well, the fishing wasn’t as productive as I had hoped, but it was definitely interesting just the same. We launched the boat at Kipling at about 5:30 a.m. and started out trolling the drop-off east of Butler’s island while it was breaking daylight. We only managed one keeper walleye in the short time that we did this. It was about 17 inches and came on a perch colored countdown Rapala trolled just above the weeds.
After it was good and light out, we headed across to the east bank to pitch jigs to the weed edge and snap them down the break. This quickly produced one descent 21 inch walleye, but nothing much after that. We fished this way for probably 20 minutes and decided to move on.
Not marking many fish at the east bank, we decided to move up north. I was marking good numbers of fish on the mud flats in the eastern part of the main basin. However, there were so many boats that we decided to try elsewhere. We then went over by the Days River and were marking good numbers of smaller fish, and there weren’t any other boats over there, so we decided to try it for a while. We were in 24-25 FOW drifting with floating jigs and crawler halves on a slip-sinker rig. We quickly caught a few small walleyes by doing this, a few keepers, and a few that were too small. We also caught a couple of decent perch in this area.
After the spot by the Days River dried up, I noticed that there wasn’t quite so much traffic on the mud flats where I was marking fish earlier, so we headed over there. We began trolling spinners and bottom bouncers behind plainer boards. We ended up catching several more small walleyes, a couple suckers, and a perch that was over a foot long doing this. The only trick seemed to be keeping the crawler rigs within one foot of the bottom, in other words, constant contact with the bouncer. It was 20-27 feet deep and we were using 3oz bouncers on the inside, and 2oz’ers on the outside lines. I tried to keep them as vertical as possible to keep them from turning sideways and resulting in hooks full of zebra mussels. As far as speed goes, anything from 0.8-1.1 worked fine. Color really didn’t seem to matter very much. I might have caught a couple more fish on a #3 purple Colorado blade than the others, but it really wasn’t much of a difference.
All and all, it was pretty much just scrounging – a fish here and a fish there. Lots of running and gunning, and at least a little action on everything, and everywhere, we tried. We ended up with 10 keeper walleyes, and quite a few throw-backs, 4 descent perch, and a few suckers in the mean time. It wasn’t the most successful day, but it was fun anyway. As far as the fish go, the numbers were there, but the size wasn’t. But it is still fun when you can run n’ gun like that and catch fish almost anywhere you drop a line.
After it was good and light out, we headed across to the east bank to pitch jigs to the weed edge and snap them down the break. This quickly produced one descent 21 inch walleye, but nothing much after that. We fished this way for probably 20 minutes and decided to move on.
Not marking many fish at the east bank, we decided to move up north. I was marking good numbers of fish on the mud flats in the eastern part of the main basin. However, there were so many boats that we decided to try elsewhere. We then went over by the Days River and were marking good numbers of smaller fish, and there weren’t any other boats over there, so we decided to try it for a while. We were in 24-25 FOW drifting with floating jigs and crawler halves on a slip-sinker rig. We quickly caught a few small walleyes by doing this, a few keepers, and a few that were too small. We also caught a couple of decent perch in this area.
After the spot by the Days River dried up, I noticed that there wasn’t quite so much traffic on the mud flats where I was marking fish earlier, so we headed over there. We began trolling spinners and bottom bouncers behind plainer boards. We ended up catching several more small walleyes, a couple suckers, and a perch that was over a foot long doing this. The only trick seemed to be keeping the crawler rigs within one foot of the bottom, in other words, constant contact with the bouncer. It was 20-27 feet deep and we were using 3oz bouncers on the inside, and 2oz’ers on the outside lines. I tried to keep them as vertical as possible to keep them from turning sideways and resulting in hooks full of zebra mussels. As far as speed goes, anything from 0.8-1.1 worked fine. Color really didn’t seem to matter very much. I might have caught a couple more fish on a #3 purple Colorado blade than the others, but it really wasn’t much of a difference.
All and all, it was pretty much just scrounging – a fish here and a fish there. Lots of running and gunning, and at least a little action on everything, and everywhere, we tried. We ended up with 10 keeper walleyes, and quite a few throw-backs, 4 descent perch, and a few suckers in the mean time. It wasn’t the most successful day, but it was fun anyway. As far as the fish go, the numbers were there, but the size wasn’t. But it is still fun when you can run n’ gun like that and catch fish almost anywhere you drop a line.