Another Val Weather Day

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Another day on the water with Val and it was a windy one once again! He has an uncanny track record of pissing off Mother Nature this season! Would we be able to make it work?

My day started off not so great when I had to change a flat tire on the trailer before heading to the ramp. I had a screw in the tread and had no idea where I managed to get it. Fortunately it only put me behind by about 20 minutes. The fish would just have to wait!

Val & I headed out in a not so bad chop that I was actually looking forward to fishing. We had one to two footers and they were from the south. It looked totally doable as I pulled into our first area and marked all kinds of fish. The wind had them active and it wasn’t long before Val was into his first walleye of the day. It was definitely going to be an over by the way it was fighting. Within the first three minutes we had several fish in the boat, but only one was a high end keeper.

After about 45 minutes the action just stopped and I was no longer marking like I was before. Something had changed and on my next hit, I was just bit off. I guess old toothy had arrived and crashed the party! We stuck it out for about 30 minutes longer before changing locations entirely. I would return later when he had hopefully disappeared.

I ran to a smallie spot just for a change and had Val tossing a blade in the area. He had fished it with me only a week before and just crushed the bass! Too bad today wasn’t the same as not a follow or take did he have! I slowed down by trying a jig here and managed only one fish. After close to an hour of covering the water we decided to relocate again. The winds had also switched direction and were building like they had forecasted. It was about to get bad!

I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to go but stopped on the first spot I thought looked doable. We drop shotted the area for about 20 minutes, landing several bass and a good keeper eye. Unfortunately we were blown off the area when walls of white caps began to appear. Even the spot lock wasn’t holding us in place! Time for a different location I guess!

I tried a couple of places somewhat sheltered from the wind, but never really felt comfortable fishing them. They were early season spots and completely void at this time of the year. We would have to move again!

I decided to make a long run to try and drift the open water but realized quickly that the waves were just too big to be able to fish. We tried the area that we had started at instead, hoping that the toothy critter had relocated. Once out in the open I made a few drifts and soon found out that it was just too difficult to feel anything. We were in 3 & 4 footers and finessing baits. Not an easy task to say the least! I had another back up plan in place and decided that now was the time to use it!

I headed over to a spot that I had recently had success fishing, in big rollers! With the aid of a drift sock to slow us down, we pounded on the walleye for a couple of hours. We were also able to add many more keepers to the well, completing Val’s limit for the day!

For some strange reason, the wind diminished around 3:00 and we were able to make another move out to open water again. We would be fishing where we had started in hopes of a few more big bites!

Within the first three minutes, Val managed to get his first bite and boated another nice big eye. A quick pic due to the lack of photos today and back it went. Val only managed to get one more bite but this time it was a good keeper and added to his catch. Looks like I would also be bringing a few fish home tonight too!

This was definitely a strange day all around with changing conditions causing many adjustments. We may not have been able to get to most of the areas I wanted to fish but we made it work. By switching it up plenty of fish were landed including a very nice limit of walleye for Val to bring home. Even I was able to take a few smaller keepers for dinner tonight! Tough conditions but par for the course with Val!