Pre-Fishing
Well it was finally here the week of the tournament and we were excited to hit the water for our two days of pre-fishing before the tournament began. It started of great as we hooked into a nice healthy walleye over some mid lake structure pulling blades. Well after a few more spots we had highlighted on our map we hooked into a smaller walleye on the top flat of a drop off. Fishing another ledge farther down the lake we hooked into a beauty once again on a blade late in the day. As we were coming back we decided to try and slow are presentations down as clearly it wasn’t working out as well as anticipated. So on the way back to the launch we decided to work some structure with a slip bobber and we hooked into a few smaller fish before we finally headed in. As the next day rolled around it was decided that we would Lindy rig and slip bobber for the way to try and stumble across some sort of pattern. With some subpar weather we decided to launch the boat in a different location. As we started to Lindy we hooked into two nice walleye right away. Excited we were onto something we checked out a couple more spots with no success until we stumbled across a windblown point. We took our first pass over and were hooked up immediately while marking a big school on this nice piece of structure as well. After a couple passes and a couple fish we decided to leave this alone and search for something else. After failing to hook up on the next couple points we found a nice drop off where the side imaging shows a nice school of fish. Using the gps to put us on the spot we managed one last walleye before the pre-fish time limit was up. We started to grow some confidence as we finally had hooked a limit of fish on a few good spots with the same technique.
Day 1
Well the day finally arrived it was Day 1 of the tournament and we were excited to get back out on the water as the anticipation was killing me. I’m pretty sure I hardly slept at all that night I was like a kid on Christmas morning. We hit our first spot and Derek was hooked up before he even hit the bottom, only turning out to be a pike. Shortly after making a pass a little deeper I was hooked up with our first walleye of the tournament and we were finally on the board less than an hour in. After not marking much on the side imaging we decided to make a run to the point we had great success on in pre-fishing. Well there was one major thing different no wind on the point which lead to no fish as we made two passes over it. Knowing we had to move on we went to head to another point farther down the lake when Derek said “Slow down and pull in here a couple boats are hooked up with nets out!” The school of fish had moved off the point and into the bay as we watched 3 boats land walleye beside us during our first pass. We were in for a long and frustrating hour as we watched countless boats hook up all around us as we only had one bite. Derek decided to cut the blade off one of his crawler harnesses and try a big night crawler. on it Am I glad he ever decided to do that that as he hooked 3 walleye, 2 being over 60cm in 40 mins! The bite was on as Derek boated 2 more nice walleye in the next 40 mins after. with 4 hours left to fish we needed at least one upgrade fish to give us a nice bag for the day. Well with a couple hours left I hooked into something big. As I seen it come up behind the boat I could see my hook and knew it was just skin hooked, trying to keep my rod down and limit him from surfacing to minimize any chance he would pull the hook. as he was 12ft behind the boat a foot under the surface just out of netting range the hook pulled and we watched our 3lb upgrade swim back to the bottom. Knowing we had to go find one more fish we ended our day where we started and didn’t manage to find that one upgrade fish. We ended up weighing in Day 1 with 23.77lbs and were well back of the top 10
Day 2
After seeing the weights on day 1 we knew we would need something special to compete for day money. We decided to start out on the ledge we finished day 1 on. Instantly I was hooked up to something big and the battle was on trying to get this fish up to the boat and into the net. Finally, it surrendered and we had our biggest fish of the tournament in the first 30 minutes of day 2. Shortly after and another pass in the same area Derek hooked into another nice walleye that made it onto our scorecard. Suddenly the fish seemed to just turn off and disappear we couldn’t buy a bite and not wanting to waist any more time we decided to start jumping spots to try and round out a limit with only 3.5 hours left to fish. The first spot looked good with a steep drop off on a nice point with some wind blowing across. Well we marked lots of fish and caught 3 pike so we decided to move on. The second spot had the exact same outcome. At this point we only had 1.5 hours left and only two fish on the board we decided to make a significant move back down the lake. As we showed upward we started marking fish quickly and seeing a few boats hook up around us was promising. Suddenly the rain started to come down and the rain was followed by hail and boy was it coming down hard. Shortly after Derek hooked into one on the Lindy and we had another one on the board. After throwing out a slip bobber and losing one I decided we needed to drop it right in front of their face to tempt them. With 30 mins left in the tournament I marked a nice fish and stopped the trolling motor and dropped a jig tipped with a leech down. I slowly watched that fish rise off the bottom till I could feel him on my rod. Fish On! as Derek scrambled for the net the fight was on to get it in the boat. Knowing we were short on time we got the fish on the board and as I looked up I could see another one on the sonar. As soon as we had or fish scored I immediately grabbed my rod and dropped it down and sure enough this fish hit and Derek was standing on the back net in hand. The sense of accomplishment as that Derek netted the 5th fish of the day was incredible words can’t explain it. We knew we weren’t anywhere near the top of the leaderboard but we accomplished our goal of weighing in 5 fish each day. With a couple high fives and a fist bump we were off to the final check-in to round out our tournament. Day 2 we ended up with 23.68lbs for a 2 day total of 47.45lbs.
Conclusion
For my first tournament I sure had a blast and will defiantly be back to try and improve on the end result. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to show me the ropes! The biggest lessons I learned from it:
- Don’t get caught up with one technique to long during pre-fishing!
- When the fish move off a spot don’t hold on to memories of the bite go find another bite.
- If your marking fish slow down and pick them apart before moving on.
- Pay attention to other anglers as there is always lots to learn from them.
- Tie more rigs then you think is necessary because them pike will eat them all….
- Never give up as one big fish or a couple quick bites can completely change a day!
Till Next Year!
June 24 2019
Great article Mat 👍