Finding The Gold

Today was a nice change of pace as I got to target fall walleye. Darren hooked up with me after 8:30 due to family duties but it didn’t matter. The fish would wait!

We raced to our first spot and I decided to do a little trolling in order to see how they were positioned. It didn’t take long before I started marking big arches and Darren was tight to his first fish. He soon brought a healthy over to the net and after a couple of pics, we released it unharmed. I knew from this fish exactly how we were going to fish and carried on with the troll. About 10 minutes later he was locked up again and this time it was even bigger. More pics and back she went, with us resuming our search for more & bigger.

Darren was on fire today with multiple hookups and fish boated and I still hadn’t had a bite. I was even contemplating a lure change but I was in too deep and now it was personal. I was bound & determined to hook up on what I was using and eventually I set in to heaviness. I exchanged the rod with Darren and as soon as I had his in hand, we were doubled! That’s a fair trade I guess! As the fish I was fighting was smaller, I landed it quickly and went for a bigger net for his. This walleye stretched over 26 inches and turned out to be big fish of the day. It was fat and healthy and a beautiful gold color too! I took a bunch of good pics and Darren released her back to continue growing.

The balance of the day saw similar results with plenty more quality eyes being caught and some of them even made it into the livewell. More than 75% of the fish today were overs but we still managed to box a few keepers for dinner tonight. At one point we even attempted casting drop shot rigs to the fish but pulled the plug after almost an hour with just a couple of hits. These big eyes were scattered and covering water was the only way to get them to eat. Although the bites weren’t that aggressive, they were definitely noticeable if you paid attention. In fact some of them were so light that they never even got pinned. Several misses were had as some of the hits were actually pushes!

We fished until after 3:30 and landed a few more walleye before calling it a day. There may not have been a ton of fish caught today but there were definitely enough to keep us interested. The best thing was that the bulk of the catch were big! Fall is a great time to get into some of the largest fish of the year, for just about any species. These walleye were a nice change to all the bass I’ve been targeting lately and I can’t wait to get back out again. With more bookings ahead, I’m sure I can mix in a few days to fish for big eyes once again. There are still several more weeks left before we switch over to the hard water fishing and plenty of open days are available. I just hope that “Mother Nature” gives us a break with the cold & wind long enough to take advantage of the great fishing ahead!