John or I haven’t been fishing Erie Walleye since last summer, so we were fishing this tournament blind!
We registered 14 boats in total. Of the 14, 7 caught fish. http://www.straitlineanglers.com/SLA_LakeErie_Walleye/2009_SLA_LakeErie_Walleye_Tournament_Results.htm And only three boats came in with a full box of four fish for the tournament. Dave Viles, a fellow Strait Line Angler, won the tournament with 28.55 lbs. He managed 10 for 12 walleyes and was clued into the Full core and large Divers close to bottom in 72-80 FOW.
For us, I will call the day of fishing on our boat good in the middle with a set of ugly bookends on either side. The morning registration, boats were arriving at the last minute. So where we posted that registration was to end at 5:45am we got caught up finalizing at 5:55 am instead. We got in the boat and motored down the river and John says, “I forgot my Sun glasses”. So we call on the VHF for someone else to blast off the tournament, but there was no answer.
We turn back to the marina and I run out to the truck to get Johns glasses. Two other boats were looking to get in the tournament- but they were turned away.
We start on our way back down the river and the fog got so thick we couldn’t see 50 ft in front of us. John try’s to navigate by his GPS and ends up running up in the mud and we make our way slowly out to the lake. We get out to the lake and there was no more fog. There also wasn’t a tournament boat in sight and the wakes from the tournament boats had already dispersed. We are really behind the 8 ball here!
We decide to head to our old waypoints from last summer and we were pleasantly surprised to find the Sonar screen looked good. We set up and worked the rods up and down , tried different baits and we were without a fish for an hour ½. Then the Metallic Purple 107 Walker Deeper Diver on 3 setting and out 200 ft with a Blue Berry Muffin Yeck and metallic Purple blades on a warm harness happens to start pulling drag (drags set loose). Slow steady retrieve and the fish comes to the net. It’s a 7 ½ lbs walleye. Nice.
We take a few Yellow Perch, a few sheepshead and a white perch throughout the day as well. All of which were treated as if they could have been a walleye playing possum.
Another hour goes by and we hit a Walleye on a Monkey Puke and Purple Puke bladed harness on a Full core straight out the back of the boat. This one was less then 3 lbs.
The second pass through the same area of the first fish was caught we discovered that it was adjacent to a marker buoy set at a ship wreck. We mark that in the GPS for future reference.
Knowing our pattern was fishing bottom now, we figure the wreck must have a few walleye close by. So we make another pass and as I was letting out another 107 Metallic Purple Walker Deeper Diver with Gold and a Purple/White/Black worm harness. The dial read 215 where I engaged the reel and noticed the rod started jerking. I pick up the rod and immediately locked up on a heavy fish. Regular headshakes were enough to stop your heart with hopes that it wouldn’t rip out the hooks. The fish comes to the net and it’s another quality walleye. We put it on the scales and it comes up just shy of 8 lbs. Now we got three.
Another 15 minutes goes by and the other full core straight out the back of the boat gets bit. John brings it in and it was the smallest fish of the day, but at least it was four for the scales. Four bites and four fish to the boat.
Now here’s the other ugly bookend to the day. We bring in all the rods and go to tilt the kicker motor and discover that the pins that slide inside the trim and tilt track, have broken off. So John and I decided to pull the motor right inside the boat. The 9.9 hp Hondo long shaft is a heavy bugger and we lay it down on the floor of the boat. The Time is getting close and the chop on the lake has made sure we couldn’t go full throttle. We managed to get in with 6 minutes to spar.
We came in with 22.95 lbs with our biggest coming in at 7.90 lbs.
Shane Thombs
www.fintasticsportfishing.com
No comments:
Post a Comment