Walleye Firsts

I knew by the wicked cold front last night that this morning was going to be a challenge. Phil joined me on the lake with a couple of his sons to see what we could accomplish. Ari had boated plenty of good fish in my boat last season but this was a first for Eli. In fact he had never caught a walleye, but this was about to change! We hit the lake just after 7:30 and ran in a pretty decent roll from the NE. Once we arrived I saw that the water temps had fallen, to no surprise. I was marking fish though and at least this was encouraging. We set the lines and started to troll for about three minutes when the first reel fired. Unfortunately it was a pike and so were the next few including a triple that at least Phil got to take part in. Eventually after about 10 minutes or so, Eli finally got his first walleye. Although not huge, it was a keeper and went into the livewell for them later tonight. We continued trolling with the NE winds in about a two foot roll and marked all kinds of fish on the bottom. Unfortunately that was where they wanted to stay and we had to work hard for each bite we received. I covered plenty of water throughout the morning both old & new and picked at fish here & there. Then the wind died and I knew we were in trouble! The damn « Dog Pecker Knats » arrived and brought along their friends the « Caddis ». We had tons of flies all over us and the fishing amazingly, got even more difficult. I had to work even harder now for each & every bite we got. I decided to try a few other waypoints from last season, seeing as how this area was almost dead and apparently it was the right move. Not all of them produced but the ones that did, really did! We boated many more eyes including a couple of personal bests for Eli over 4 pounds. Still not giants, I searched on looking for bigger & better. Eventually he brought to net one over 5 pounds and was now, all smiles! Late in the afternoon I found one small area that was holding quite a few fish and we picked at them pretty good. I think our percentage between pike & walleye was 60/40. Not bad considering how many pike this lake actually has. We stuck it out until just after 4:00 and I ended with everyone catching another fish before we headed back to the ramp. The last three fish were remarkably all walleye as well. Despite the difficult conditions for fishing we still managed to boat a great number of fish by anyone’s standards. I on the other hand know that if we could have had stability in the weather, the outcome would have doubled. Either way, it was still a great day of fishing as plenty of fish were played with all day long!!