Midweek Slammers

My cousin Adam had his standard work weekend coming up so he had to utilize a couple of days in the middle of the week and see what trouble he could get himself into up at our place for a day or two. Tuesday evening I met Adam out at the lake and we tried our luck at a waldo or two, or eight as he would have said. It was a struggle to get them dialed in and I think we ended up with 3 or four keepers but nothing out of this world. This pattern was out of my league and even I was looking to change up and even end up drift fishing if need-be.


Wednesday morning we got up at a decent time and got out on the lake. We tried our usual cranks and jigs tactics but it was not working, and we were even watching fish follow our baits right up to the boat with a strike. We had landed one doing this but it was not working. We hauled back to the bait shop and Adam picked up some leeches. We motored close to our original spot and set the anchor function on the trolling motor. In less than 30 seconds we had a walleye hooked and in the boat, and within another minute we had another. I have never seen anything like it!!! Yes, the initial flurry subsided, but we could see the walleyes cruising around in the shallow water. A slip bobber and a live leech did wonders in a short amount of time. Before we knew it we were to our usual scenario up here: slot limit. We were having to throw back any fish over 20 inches as we had our two for the slot. We moved around a couple of times trying to find more active fish, but we ended up right back where we started. As the morning turned to afternoon, the sun got high and the wind all but died down to a light breeze. We were looking to fill a limit and were throwing back big ones. Horrible problem, I know.


For one reason or another, I have had a propensity to catch some of my largest fish on Adam's gear. My largest pike on Indian; Adam's tip up. Largest perch; Adam's tip up. Largest Walleye? Well up until this point it was by my own accord, but on the loaner bobber rig I lifted into a log on the far side of the boat and knew this one was heavier than anything we had caught yet today. As it neared the boat I heard a low "oh geez, that is big" from Adam. At that point I was feathering the line and awaited his master net skills to get this thing in the boat. One fluid swoop and we had the largest walleye I have ever caught in the boat. She may have been a 29 inch fish but the spawn took a lot out of her as she was a skinny 29 inches. You will not hear me complaining one bit!

After pics I got her back in the water as quickly as possible and we watched as the log swam back into the depths. In all honesty, I was borderline unphased by the whole thing. Even Adam was starting to give me crap about it. I'm a gator hunter, and this was a walleye. I will not undercut how awesome this was, but I often feel the same way about walleyes in the way Adam feels about pike: borderline indifference. With that in mind I was still stoked that we found such a large fish, and on a bobber and leech nonetheless. I will be adding this method to my arsenal.




After another couple of hours we ended up having to call it a day.

I ended up heading into town with Adam afterwards as Rachel was already in town for a haircut and a chiro appointment and I took this as an opportunity to have a nice dinner with the Mrs. It was a cap to a great day on the water!




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