Here Today Gone Tomorrow

[MarkB]

For the past few days, I've been fishing alone because of the chilly inclimate weather(or so she says). Whenever I don't really "have to" catch fish to keep my wife enthused or we want fish for a meal, I like to "explore" and fish places I've never really tried before. Such was the case yesterday. Actually, I had in mind where I wanted to try, and when I pulled into the little bay, I had the area all to myself. Water depths ranged from ~28' at the mouth on up. The water temperature was 51 degrees with a gusty west wind. When I got my first hit, it kind of took me by surprise and nearly pulled my rod over board. I had the fish on for a bit but lost it with the phony hook set that I managed. With nobody around, I dropped a marker and, for the next 2 hours or so, I followed a big school of walleyes all around that bay from as deep as 24' to as shallow as 19'. My first hit came on a minnow and every single hit after that was on a leech!  I couldn't get them to hit a minnow! My best fish was 18.5" and I ended up boating 12 walleyes and 2 jumbos. I caught a few dinks(3) but I could have kept an easy limit of 15"-16"ers.

So, today my wife was excited to go. Clear skies, light and variable wind, horrible day for finding walleyes! I went back to the spot from yesterday. Today, however, another boat was in the vicinity. When 2 boats started fishing in proximity to each other, a third came, then a fourth. Typical. Fortunately, the hits today were few and far between. We managed 1 walleye on a minnow and that was it. The area where they were so active yesterday was totally void this morning! So I moved....

On my way to "plan B" I happened to notice bunches of funny looking little marks close to the bottom in 35' of water. I slowed everything down and retraced my GPS track and the whole bottom lit up. Eventually, I marked fish for a 1/2 mile in the 32'-35' depth. I baited my wife up with leeches and I stuck on a big sucker minnow. Almost immediately I hooked up but lost the fish half way in. I dropped the minnow back down and immediately got one 16". Aha! Hungry and nice...my favorite combo. I changed my wife over to minnows and when we left at 12:30, we had boated 17 walleyes and one jumbo. I can't guess how many we missed and lost, but suffice it to say, plenty! They wouldn't even look at a leech! Go figure. We used our standard rig.

On a side note, two other boats pulled up beside us and fished. They were close enough that I could see exactly how they were fishing. I didn't see either boat catch a single fish! 3 fishermen in one boat and 2 in the other. Both boats were using jigs and minnows. I observed these boats as they blew by us on their trolling runs. The angle of their line, probably due to speed, was <30 degrees compared to the side of their boat. I have no idea how much line they had out but I would bet they were NOT close to the bottom.. I believe that speed is as important in fishing as wind is in hunting! We maintained our speed at .3-.5mph. Anytime we deviated from that speed, our hits stopped. I think speed is the main contributing factor for lack of success in fishing. Knowing where to go and what to look for doesn't hurt either

I kept 3-14"-15" walleyes and a jumbo for lunch. When cleaning the walleyes, they were full of mayfly larvae and some had  miniature shiner minnows in their stomachs. The shiner minnows were about the size of a "nice" chub minnow. They liked both suckers and rainbows. When we left for home, the water temp had warmed to 53 degrees.

Good Fishing,

MarkB

 

[SkunkedAgain]

Can we get a button on this forum that automatically thanks MarkB for his posts. Not that I mind typing it all out, but he always has some of the best posts around. My fingers are getting tired!

So thanks Mark. Great as usual

[james_walleye]

For sure.....love Mark's posts!

[fins_n'_feathers]

Wish we could have had as good of luck as you today, we fished our tails off today and only found one pocket of active fish in a deep hole off a shallow point, 30 feet of water. lots of biters but they were all cookie cutter 10 inchers. Jig and a minnow got all of them. Had leeches with but never tried them, speaking of that I forgot them in the boat, better go grab em before the get ripe! good luck everyone! We will back after em tomorrow!

[redlabguy]

Another great report! And I finally got my password issue solved (pilot error) so I can "like" it. My first couple days are similar to other folks. I can find the small ones but good eaters are hard to come by. I did bring home dinner the day I ran into you and managed a couple keepers yesterday. Today one 22" and a boatload of dinks! I've been trying shallower areas off shallow bays and then that deep hole on the east end of Fraser always tempts me because it's so close to home, but you have to sort through a dozen dinks to find a keeper. 

Next time I go to town, or to Shamrock, I'm going to pick up some leeches. But I don't think bait is the issue. Fishing time is part of it. I get through chores and it's already 3 o'clock. And while she's a taskmaster on chores, my wife always cooks a great dinner. Life is hard.

RLG

[Rick]

Can we get a button on this forum that automatically thanks MarkB for his posts. Not that I mind typing it all out, but he always has some of the best posts around. My fingers are getting tired!

So thanks Mark. Great as usual

​Press the "Like this" button in his posts if you appreciate what he shares. Another thing you can do is click on his avatar/picture and follow him. Then you never have to miss one of his posts.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Rick