2013 MWC IL River Re-cap

The 2013 tournament fishing season got off to a cold start for myself in more ways than one. The sandals that I wore in 2012 were replaced by layers of clothes, hats, gloves and pack boots. Unseasonably cold weather along with high winds made for an interesting start to the year.

Pre-Fishing

One of the reasons I look forward to the MWC IL River opener is it means I am usually breaking in a new boat. This year I went with the Lund Pro-V 1975 with a Mercury Verado 225. I dropped it in the water for the first time the week before, March 16, the tournament started. I absolutely love this boat as it is not too big and yet not to small.

The boat ran beautifully and am I ever glad I went with the full windshield. The weather was horrible all week with several days that did not get above 32 degrees. There were two days that the wind chill was below zero degrees when I went on the water with winds of 20-30 MPH and gusts that were even higher. To say the least it was miserable but the full windshield allowed for as comfortable of a ride as I could get.

The river had dropped about 5 feet and was at flood stage with water temperatures of around 40 degrees. The first two days of pre-fishing I was able to find some male saugers that were willing to cooperate. It took me a little while to slow down enough to get them to bite but I adjusted and was starting to put together a pattern. Now I had to find where the female saugers were hiding.

The weather took a turn for the worse on Tuesday and Wednesday. There were only 10-15 boats that fished those days and after a few hours of no luck I was wondering why I was fishing in 30 mile an hour winds with temperatures below freezing.  On Tuesday I checked out some areas south of Hennepin but all I found were asian carp and dirty water as you can see in the picture below.

I kept checking spots and I was rewarded for sticking it out. I found a down river area that was holding nice fish, tournament winning fish. I ended up catching 10 fish on Tuesday in two passes, all females. 

Thursday the weather was a little nicer and most of the field was back on the water. I continued to look for additional spots and caught a couple of nice fish at the clam beds and then headed up to the Peru Flats. I made one pass and caught 4 nice females and 1 male. I thought I had this thing figured out. I was trolling rapala's really slow upstream. What was encouraging is I started to catch them on the number 9 floaters when earlier in the week I was only catching them on number 5's. I thought they were getting more aggressive and the bite would be on for the weekend!

There was a lot of grumbling about how bad the bite was. I was feeling pretty good as I had put in the time all week when many stayed in bed. I gained even more confidence when Shooter joined me Friday morning. We went to my down river spot and we caught two 19 inchers in less than 20 minutes. The two pictures below weren't the best as we were trying to keep these fish out of sight from other boats but I can assure you they were both nice, 19 inch females.

We were able to keep the first fish out of sight. However, a boat saw us catch the second fish. I get a kick out of some of these guys. As soon as the boat saw we had a fish he immediately changed course and got right next to our boat watching our every move. He got so close our rods were almost touching as we both trolled up river. I probably should have said something but I decided to ignore his bad etiquette. I guess that is what he had to do seeing as he didn't want to fish in the cold on Tuesday and Wednesday. We headed up river and were only able to catch one more fish. The water got real dirty but I was confident that it would clear up over night and we would be fine.

Tournament - Day 1

The weather actually was pretty nice as we made our run down river. There were 25-30 boats fishing the stretch of river we targeted. We saw a couple of fish caught trolling early but it became apparent early that the jig bite was picking up. We made three passes with no fish and saw maybe 10 fish caught with most caught jigging. The river had been slowly dropping all week and visibility was better than it had been all week. In my opinion I thought there should have been more fish caught so I assumed that the fish had left so we headed up to the Peru Flats. I was a little nervous but I thought for sure that we could catch fish on the flats.

Wrong again, that is what I get for thinking. We made two long passes with no luck. Even more concerning was the fact that we didn't see a fish caught and there were a ton of boats fishing the same area. Uh-Oh, scramble time. I decided to head back down river, at least we saw fish caught there. We tried trolling with no luck and only saw one more fish caught, jigging. We then switched over to vertical jigging and went to work. We tried numerous spots and we did not get a single bite. 

Our day was over and for the first time, other than 2007 when only 4 fish were caught out of 200 boats, we didn't weigh a fish. I felt a little better that nearly half of the field zeroed and there was only one or two limits caught with a measly 8 pounds plus winning. Wow! I knew the bite was tough but I never expected to see numbers like that!

Tournament - Day 2

We decided to head down river again but this time we were committed to jigging. It was clear that the pattern I was on had all but died and the jig bite was the answer. On our first drift down river Shooter hooked into a 16-1/2 incher. That was the only fish we saw caught there and around 10:00 we headed up river and started hopping spots. We did not get another bite until we got to the upper end of the flats. We caught several small fish and I caught 16 and a 17-1/2" sauger on consecutive drifts and that was it for the day. 

We ended up finishing in the middle of the pack with 3 fish that weighed 5-07 pounds. There were more fish caught on day 2 and the winners jigged up a nice limit to end with a little over 18 pounds. 

In the end I stuck to my trolling pattern too long. The river dropped and cleared up which pulled the fish off of the flats and into the middle of the channel. I don't think the bite was better on day 2 than day 1. I just think it took the field a while to find where the fish had moved. Looking back I should have got the jig rods out sooner and headed into the middle of the channel. Unfortunately, Monday morning quarterbacking doesn't work. I can only learn from the experience and apply what I learned the next time I experience a similar situation.

Next stop is my favorite, Red Wing, MN, on the Mississippi River for the Cabelas National Walleye Tour at the end of April. Updates to follow!

IL River Pre-Fishing Re-Cap

The first tournament of the year, MWC IL River, is in the books. We finished 36th out of 154 boats which was a bit disappointing but we were only five spots and less than 1/2 a pound out of the money. Here is a recap of how our pre-fishing went.

New MWC Partner

For the first time I would not be fishing an MWC event with Scott Pirnstill, aka Shooter. Shooter had a scheduling conflict and was unable to fish. In his place Mark Michael, pictured above with a walleye he caught on the IL River last year while pre-fishing, an accomplished tournament angler and one of my fishing mentors. The IL River is Mark's home water and he knows it well even though he says that the IL River is not one of his favorite places to fish.

Saturday

The first day on the water with a new boat is a special day. Much of Saturday was spent breaking in the Verado 200 on the new Lund 1875 Pro V. Mark did a great job rigging the boat and I am loving the new ride! We did get a chance to get in some fishing as we hoped to find a good bite for the Illinois Walleye Trail (IWT) opener the following day. The river was in unprecedented condition for this time of year with water temperatures of over 60 degrees, they would rise all the way to 68 degrees for the MWC opener! After some searching we found some active, decent sized fish down at the clam beds. Ol' Shooter came down for the weekend with his son Boston. Shooter and Boston caught 2 saugers over 20 inches in the same area. Fish like those have been hard to come by in recent years so committing to the clam beds for the IWT opener was a no brainer!

Sunday IWT

The fishing was pretty good but it was pretty obvious that the bigger fish moved. The water was slowly dropping and it appears the fish moved to other areas with current conditions that fit their needs. Ol' Shooter and Boston, pictured above, did a little better than we did finishing 31st out of 71. Mark and I finished 41st. We caught plenty of fish but we just could not find the bigger fish. Adam Sandor, owner of the IWT, and his staff did a great job. I was not unhappy with our finish, sure we would have liked to do better but our main goal was to prepare for the MWC. We learned a lot on the water and were excited about the week to come!

Monday

I spent Monday with the outdoors writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, Dale Bowman (pictured above with a small male sauger). I enjoy fishing with Dale, he has a great sense of humor. He told me that one of the main reasons he moved to Chicago was from a visit he had when he was in college. He and some friends were in the bleachers at Comiskey Park drinking beer with Harry Carey and Jimmy Piersall. He thought that was pretty neat and said this is my kind of town. I love it! Dale also is an advocate for the outdoors and shines the light on the good and the bad. There aren't many outdoor writers in the newspaper business left which is a shame. I encourage anyone who likes the outdoors to read his articles and listen to his show on public radio, Outside with Dale Bowman. Here is the link to his article about our day http://www.suntimes.com/sports/outdoors/11424689-452/a-march-unlike-any-other-for-chicago-fishing.html.

I met Dale at 7AM at Time On the Water Outdoors. A storm was coming in and lighting was everywhere. I pulled up the radar on my cell phone and it appeared if we went up river we might miss the storm. Dale agreed and we ran up river to the dam. I had a plan setup for down river where we would have caught a lot of fish. I needed to check out places up river anyway and thought we would be able to catch our share. Things did not work out that way as we caught everything but a sauger upriver. After trying numerous spots it was 11:20 and we still did not have a sauger. Dale had to be dropped off at the landing by noon. If I spend a morning with the outdoor writer for the Sun-Times and catch zero saugers I am going to get the business from the boys! I setup in the middle of the river on the Peru flats. Luckily there were male saugers who were willing to bite and we caught 4 in about 20 minutes.

I dropped Dale off at Barto Landing and headed back up river. I knew if males were in the area I should be able to find some female saugers. Sure enough, on the first pass after I dropped off Dale I caught a couple of nice females, including the one above. Oh well, that's fishing! I actually learned quite a bit and felt the pieces to the puzzle were coming together.

Tuesday

I was alone all day as Mark was going to start pre-fishing with me on Wednesday. The area that I wanted to take Dale was absolutely on fire. I can't remember how many fish I caught, including the one above, but it was a lot and they were absolutely hammering my jig and plastic.

I went to three different spots and the story was the same aggressive saugers like the one above. I am pretty confident that my best 5 fish would have weighed close to 12 pounds which I knew would be a big weight in the tournament. Two problems, one the tournament is four days away, two this is hardly a secret spot and fishing pressure will be an issue. I spent the rest of the day fishing spots downriver without much success.

Wednesday

Mark and I ran up to the dam and tried pitching jigs shallow. We caught a couple but they were small and we decided that we would spend the rest of the week fishing from Peru south. I wanted to show Mark the areas where I hammered them the day before. We jigged for nearly 3 hours without 1 sauger to show for our efforts. Mark says he likes jigging but he definitely would rather do some sort of trolling program. Vertical jigging is somewhat of an art and Mark and I have philosophic differences on just about every level, especially jig size and color. I don't think either philosophy is wrong it is just what we have confidence in doing. Regardless, I knew if I could show him how these fish were inhaling the plastics that he would agree it was the way to go. Mark had been on me big time about trolling lead core and I was dead set against the idea. I knew I could find the fish jigging I just needed to spend the time jigging but Mark was getting restless.

I finally gave in and we made one trolling pass which took about 30 minutes. It was only fitting that we hammered them catching 10 fish on that first pass with our best 5 weighing around 11 pounds. Mark was smiling ear to ear while I was shaking my head. I knew that we would not be jigging in the tournament as we tore them up the rest of the day. The fish had moved in shallower than we had been jigging and trolling was much more efficient way to cover water.

Thursday and Friday

My buddy Bad Brad Munda joined us for the final two days of pre-fishing. We put in at Hennepin and tried numerous spots down river with little success. We stopped at the Hennepin flats and caught several males jigging. We went to the other side of the river and caught a couple of decent females but not as big as we had caught the last couple of days. The wind was blowing pretty good making boat control a little difficult. I was keeping my jigs vertical but the boys in the back of the boat were getting on me pretty good because their baits were not. Bad Brad noticed right away that any comment that he made about boat control was getting under my skin and getting a chuckle from Mark so they really gave it to me. I almost dropped them off on shore but I decided I would troll lead core which I knew would make them happy.

The next two days we checked our spots and tried new ones. We were starting to notice a larger percentage of female saugers that we were catching were spawned out which was a bit of a concern. We knew this tournament was going to be a shootout and every ounce was going to matter.

We had put in the time and our lead core program was working. We knew the area we were fishing was going to be full of boats. We were fishing shallower and faster than most so we were confident that we would be able to navigate through the armada of boats. Our spots were locked in and we were optimistic about our chances!

Next - Tournament Days

Back In the Saddle

It is hard to say that it has been a long winter as mother nature has blessed us with a surprisingly mild Southern Wisconsin winter. However, it has been a long winter for me. In years past I would fish into January on the Mississippi and then sit on a bucket catching fish through the ice into March. This year that did not happen.

I also would spend a lot of time in the field chasing pheasants with my trusted Brittany, Bailey. Unfortunately, that did not happen either as Bailey's health forced her into retirement. I tried to sneak the gun case and game vest out of the house but her nose still works too good. I just couldn't do that to my little buddy, besides without her it is not as fun. Instead I have spent the last couple of months taking her for walks and getting my fishing gear ready and am I ever ready!

2012 is setting up to be a great year. In addition to my 2011 sponsors of Lund, Mercury, Shimano, EZEE Step and Do-It Molds, I have added a new one, Frabill. Frabill is synonymous with nets but they are so much more. They continue to innovate with new products and clothing. Their new FXE Storm Suit is amazing and was recognized as best in apparel at the 2010 ICast show. I have fished some pretty nasty days and this suit will allow me to fish as comfortably as possible in the most extreme of conditions. Frabill is also the leader in Ice Fishing with shelters, ice suits, rods and reels, etc. If you want to catch fish through the ice Frabill products will help you do it better! They also have the best live bait management systems on the market. I will be at retail locations showing the benefits of these products and my other sponsors throughout the year!

My first tournament is the MWC Illinois River which is less than 3 weeks away. I will be giving a tournament preview and will do my best to update this blog weekly throughout the season. I look forward to sharing the good and the bad, hopefully there will be more good than bad!

See you later on down the river!

MWC IL River - What Went Wrong

After spending the previous weekend and the two days prior to the MWC IL River tournament, Shooter and I felt we had a good shot at winning the tournament. We knew it was going to be a shootout due to the excellent water conditions and the lack of bigger fish being caught. If the fish we were catching on Thursday were still there we were going to be in the mix!

Saturday was a raw, cold, day with east winds gusting to 30 mph. Our plan was to hit our big fish spots with the number one spot being the Peru flats. I was a little nervous that there would be a ton of boats as I noticed several were fishing there on Friday. As we pulled up to our spot I was shocked to see that no one was fishing the flats. This could only mean one of two things, one we have the spot to ourselves and we are going to win this thing or the fish have moved on.

Unfortunately, it was the latter. We spent 3 hours jigging and trolling crankbaits. There were plenty of fish there, the problem was the big females were gone. We quickly caught our limit and began sorting but we caught nothing over 16". That is what happens when fishing rivers in general, especially in the spring, here today, gone tomorrow! We went shallow, deep, slower and faster but we could not find them. We decided we had to move as you cannot win the tournament on day 1 but you certainly can lose it!

We then went to plan B, a spot the locals call Auggies which was close to our first spot. This was a hardly a secret spot as there were fifteen boats, or so, fishing the tight break. Again, we caught plenty of fish but nothing that was going to help us win so we packed up and headed to the clam beds.

In most years, the clam beds are going to hold big sauger, especially when the river is in good shape. The IWT tournament was won the week before in the clam beds and it was sure to be a player. We rounded the corner to see an armada of boats fishing from the high  wires all the way down past the power plant on both sides of the river. This area was getting pounded to say the least but we knew all of the boats were down there because big fish were there.

The action was not fast and furious but we did manage to catch about 2 fish every jigging pass. They were all female sauger, none were huge but we did manage to upgrade all of our fish in just 3 passes. We were in the right area as we would go right by the eventual winner as he was trolling upstream and we were jigging downstream. We did not see a lot of fish caught so I am not sure if the big fish were caught early or not or if trolling was producing the bigger fish. Regardless we needed a "kicker" fish so we left with about an hour to go and ran back up the flats hoping that the big fish moved in.

No luck as we continued to catch fish but nothing to help us. We headed in very disappointed knowing that we would need a huge Sunday. We ended up weighing 8.93 pounds which put us in the bottom one third of the field. The good news was, as we thought, it was a shootout and only a couple of pounds separated us from the top 20.

Day 2 - We decided to change it up on Sunday and cover as much water as possible hoping that we would find that "kicker" fish. We decided to run all the way up to Utica to fish the spot where my buddy Mark caught a kicker walleye on Friday. If I had to do it all over again I would not have made the run. I hate fishing up there because you know there will be a ton of boats and a ton of smaller fish. Plenty of tournaments have been won up there and big fish are always caught. However, it is hard to catch them two days in a row up there as the  big fish seem to be on the move.

The steep break where we had caught them on Friday still held fish but not as many. We easily caught our limit in the first hour but nothing of any size. By looking at all of the boats it looked like a good number of the fish had moved to the other side of the river. Probably caused by the river level going down. We didn't check it out and headed back down river to the flats.

We set up on the flats and started smoking them. The good news is some bigger female saugers had moved back in. We were catching them like crazy with doubles being common. The problem was they were all in the 17" range. We kept hoping and hoping that if we put in our time we were bound to catch a big fish. No cigar, after about 3 hours the bite died so we headed back down to the clam beds to see if we could upgrade.

Again we caught fish but nothing to help us as the fishing pressure seemed to be taking its toll. We thought our best chance was to head back to the flats and hope. To my surprise, when I turned the key to my Verado nothing happened. Uh Oh! The battery was dead. I had a problem the Saturday before the tournament due to a wiring issue. I fixed that issue, what now? We didn't have time to worry about that as we were floating down a working river with barges and a ton of fishing boats.

The only thing we could do was to switch the leads from the Verado battery to the kicker battery. It was a big pain but we were lucky enough to get it done without incident. Luckily the boats that we almost floated into understood we were without power and avoided us as we floated down river. It turned out the brand new battery was bad and was not holding a charge.

We headed back up to the flats and we started smoking them right away. We did upgrade a couple of fish but our biggest for the day was only 17-3/4". We headed in and ended up having a better day weighing over 10 lbs. That moved us up to 52nd place out of 123. The sad part is we were only one good fish away from placing in the money.

I was disappointed to say the least but I can't complain about the fishing. It was awesome we just could not catch the "kicker". There were lessons learned that I can use in the future. I love fishing this river and still think I will have my day it is just going to have to wait! I am already looking forward to the 2012 MWC!

Decision Time - What Tour(s) to Fish

The days are getting longer and the extreme cold has given way to temperatures that are more pleasing to my brittany spaniels paws. This can only mean that winter is not going to last all year so I need to get my 2011 fishing schedule in order!

Choosing which walleye tour(s) to fish is easy for some. For others, like myself, it is a difficult decision with many variables to be considered. If I had unlimited resources and was without a job I would fish them all. However, since the money tree I planted last year did not produce I have to make the best decision for myself and my sponsors. My biggest liability is I only have 20 days of vacation. To compete at the pro level you need to take an entire week off to pre-fish so that means I will have to keep it to four major tournaments. So which tournament should I fish?

The Masters Walleye Circuit (MWC) is a team circuit that has an excellent schedule. I fished the central division 2006-08 and the Illinois River opener the last two years with my buddy Shooter (Scott Pirnstill). We have had some success with an 11th (2008) and 3rd place (2009). This is one that I will always try to have on my schedule as I think we can win! Shooter and I will be fishing this one. Because we know this water pretty good I will only take two vacation days for pre-fishing.

The Forest L Wood (FLW) Walleye Tour has an excellent schedule as well, however, I now only have 18 vacation days left. There are four tournaments, Lake Erie in May, Leech Lake in June, Green Bay in July and Lake Oahe in August. I live close enough to Green Bay that I could  skip a couple of days of pre-fishing, saving vacation days, allowing me to fish all four tournaments. The major benefit of fishing all four tournaments is you gain points based on performance. The top 50 pros qualify for the championship which has an excellent purse with no entry fee. I would be out of vacation days so that would not be a benefit to me. Now my focus shifts to which tournaments would I have the best chance at winning. I am considering Lake Erie, Leech Lake and Green Bay.

The Anglers Insight Marketing (AIM) Walleye Tour is the only one that I have not fished. Their format is on the cutting edge with no fish being kept. Instead all fish are measured, recorded, photographed and released back into the water. AIM will be visiting Winneconne (Wolf River) in April, Dubuque (Mississippi River), Brimley, MI (St. Mary's River) and their championship on Lake Oahe in September. I could fish all of the tournaments but with the Brimley event being an invitational I cannot guarantee that I would be able to fish. That would put me out of the angler of the year race which has a nice payout. Instead I am considering fishing the Wolf River and Mississippi River event.

Because I will not be involved in a points race in any of the circuits my decisions will be based on where I have the best chance to win. I will be fishing by myself in most of the FLW/AIM events with the exception of one maybe two events, I will be leaning towards bodies of water that I am familiar with. Teaming with another angler(s) is common practice on these tours as anglers share expenses and information. Sharing of information happens during pre-fishing and after tournament days. It is against the rules to communicate with another angler during tournament hours. I am all for teaming but I will be going solo this year for the most part. I will tackle this subject at a later date.

Deposits are due soon so I need to make my decisions ASAP! I am leaning towards two FLW events, one AIM event, the MWC opener on the Illinois River along with the Lund Mania tournament on Otter Tail Lake in Minnesota. I will post my decision soon so I can start getting ready for open water!