Ford Sun afternoon

[rambler]

The SE wind was right and the rain had brought the Ford R. up to color the water. We started fishing about 4:40 pulling crawler harnesses and a few cranks N. to fishery point in 8-10 feet of water. Mostly pretty near shore.
Got the first fish within 5 minutes right near the Ford. 22 inches and it ended up being our biggest. Limited out with 10 fish mostly 15-18 inches. Lots of throwbacks 1/4 inch or so too short. I would guess 15-20 fish.
Got low on crawlers and tried a Gulp 4" minnow worm in watermelon color on a purple with red bead crawler harness. That ended up catching more fish than the crawler rigs by quite a bit. I had never tried the Gulp seriously before and that gave me some confidence for another time. Another fun trip with my friend Andrew!

[acesario]

Thanks for driving Lloyd, always exciting to catch a limit of walleye!!!

[WalligatorGetter]

Sounds like you guys had fun. I’m glad to finally see a report from someone who was fishing in that area. The last few times I’ve been out of the Ford there have been several boats right out at the mouth. I was wondering if I have been missing something! And it sounds like I have been missing out. I usually enjoy fishing for the bigger fish down south, but that has been very spotty for me lately. You guys caught way more than the couple fish I’ve been getting. Anyway, thanks for the detailed report! I know there are a lot of people on this site who really appreciate reports just like this one.

Also, I too went out of the Ford this weekend. The fishing was pretty much same-ol, same-ol, so I didn’t think it was worth a new thread. Unlike the smart people, I ended up fishing between 8 and 11 miles south of the Ford. Daytime action was minimal. I lost one nice fish on a down deep Husky, and my dad caught one small sheepshead.

Nighttime action was slow, but existent. We fished for a couple hours after dark and ended up with three walleyes that were 22, 23, and 28.5 inches long. They all came from trolling the shorelines with bright colored thundersticks in 8-12 FOW.

There are a lot of fish up in that shallow water, but this time we couldn’t get them to bite in the daytime. It was frustrating because I would stand in the front of the boat and could see them spooking away with my polarized glasses. One fish was really big (28-31), and there was also a school of about ten smaller ones (20-25 inches) at one point. It was kind of cool.

[rambler]

The river was so high and that river water was blown to the north with the SE wind it dirtied things up quite a bit. The weather was cloudy mostly with moderate to light winds. Had one shower blow through briefly. We were shallow enough that nothing much showed up and Andrew's Humminbird 788 and visibility even with polarized lenses was almost non-existent at the surface. We fished 3 planer boards on a side but they were biting so fast (many undersized) I could not get a 3rd line in on my side for over an hour. Several times I was hit while letting line out just 20-30 feet back of the boat.
Right up at the point we had three fish hit at once, several times 2. I enjoy the fast fishing once in a while, it makes me feel like a genius.
I also have been fishing long enough to know that a dose of humility will float my way soon enough.

[YooperTroll]

Yep, take what Mom Nature gives ya and get it while the going's good.

I finally hit a dry spell fishing with my 8-year-old...I've been telling him all spring the good times wouldn't last. Now he knows :)