Fall Trolling For Eyes
October 30, 2021
Another day with NE winds but at least today, they were less! Tino & Milton were with me, looking for some walleye action. Milton wanted to keep some and hoped to be able to catch a few for dinner tonight. I only hoped that the fish would bite!
We headed to an area and I decided to check and see if I could mark anything in a usual fall spot. As luck would have it, I saw a bunch of good fish in the mid-range and knew exactly what to do. We were going trolling!
With rods in hand, I began the slow troll over the areas where I had seen the walleye. We went for a distance before Tino set into one and things were looking up. He slowly brought to net a good high end keeper and Milton was excited. It was looking like they would be having fish for dinner!
I was seeing plenty of marks on the sonar and slowly trolled the area looking for more. Next up was Milton and he brought another good keeper to net as well giving them a second walleye in the tank. Things were starting to look up!
I kept at the troll for quite a while going over hook after hook with little success. Bait changes were made and still no takers! We continued covering the water and eventually another fish was hooked into by Milton. It was a real nice one and made for a great pic but that’s all. This time it was an over and returned back to the water immediately after.
For the next couple of hours our luck wasn’t great. They were catching fish but not the size Milton was hoping for. These ones were all overs and some of them were pretty big! Eventually I slowed down more and Tino land another big over on a drop shot rig. I made a few casts to see if I could help and also hooked into another big walleye. It’s not a bad thing when the fish are too big, except when you want keepers.
After quite a while I decided to make a move to an area where I was sure they would be able to catch a few more to eat. On Tinos first cast, he hooked into a good fish, but this proved to be a smallie. Great fight but wrong species! We switched from casting to drifting and despite the difficult wind direction to the current, managed one other eye in the keeper size.
The remainder of the time was spent going to a couple of other places and catching smaller fish. Unfortunately they were unders and returned as well. On the last area however, one more keeper came aboard giving them another fish for their dinner.
The days preceding today were filled with giant NE winds and I’m sure this was partly the reason we struggled. The water was also very stained and off color pretty much everywhere we tried. They did see some great fish however, but not for consumption. It’s always a good thing to catch big fish, just not in this case! In the end, they managed to catch a bunch and brought home several for their dinner tonight. They also got some really great pics of the big ones too!
