Tough Bites on New Water

After a couple of days off, I was out again yesterday looking for a few new walleye areas to fish for upcoming clients. Fortunately, before the electrical storms sent us running for the ramp, I located one that was great for the client coming today. We managed to get into 2 nice walleye and a couple of good smallies up to 3.5 pounds in only a couple of hours giving me the confidence to refine this area in the morning. Stuart and his son, Stuart Jr. were to fish with me today in hopes of catching a few walleye for the table tonight. I was pretty sure after yesterday that this wouldn’t be a problem and we ran to the area right away. Winds were out of the west at 5 to 10 knots and a mix of sun & cloud were what we were faced with. Air temps were below 60 degrees at the start and barely in the 70’s by the end. Water temps were around 72.5 degrees in most areas we fished as we began our troll. The first rod didn’t take too long to fire but it wasn’t a walleye but rather a 4-pound smallie and Stuart Jr. battled it to the boat and right into the livewell it went for future pics later. A short while after, 2 of the rods fired and we were into a double header with both fish also being smallmouth bass. Jr. landed another fish in the 4-pound class while his father released one of 2.5 pounds at the same time too. The next double wasn’t bass but rather walleye as we managed to get them both on board & into the livewell for dinner tonight. It was difficult trolling this area with all the floating vegetation, but we managed nonetheless! Soon after this double header had happened, another double walleye happened but we were only able to land one as the other shook the hooks free almost at the boat. A couple of other smallies and we went searching for more active fish elsewhere. This was to prove to be the wrong decision as we only had a couple of short rips on the reel and nothing to reel in after. I thought we might have better luck trolling for muskie and decided to try our luck at this for an hour or so. Unfortunately, this also didn’t pan out and we went back to the original area in hopes of catching a few more walleye or at least some more smallies. The weeds had really floated in and were twice as bad as they were in the morning making my life living hell, as I had to clear the lines constantly. Add a stronger wind to the mix and we had the perfect match for disaster! We did have several short strikes and even a smallie on for a short time, but it went to the air and threw the lure as well. I had to try another area due to all the weeds and never had another taker before we called it a day. It started out great, but as the wind switched and intensified, the fish really shut down. I was still marking them in certain areas, but wasn’t able to get them active enough to eat. I hope the weather stabilizes and the fish go back on the feed once again, really soon!!