MWC IL River Re-Cap

The first tournament is in the books. 'Ol Shooter and I put ourselves in a position to win as we were third after day 1. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done on day 2 and slipped to 16th which was good enough to finish in the money. We were disappointed but in the end it was pretty good finish after a sub-par pre-fish period.

Pre-Fishing

With the MWC moving the tournament to a Friday I was only going to have two days to pre-fish. I decided to head down the Saturday and Sunday before the tournament despite the river being a mess from the snowmelt. We had to do a little ice breaking even to get on the water.

This ended up being an expensive decision as one of my favorite jigging rods didn't even make it on the water. Good thing GLoomis and Shimano have a lifetime guarantee!

I pre-fished with Mark Michael and Bad Brad Munda. In two days of fishing we did not catch a fish. I wasn't surprised on Saturday as visibility was around 2". Sunday the river was well past the crest and visibility had increased to 4-5". With no rain in the forecast and mild temperatures in the forecast, there was no doubt fishing would be much better when I returned on Wednesday.

My partner, Scott Pirnstill aka Shooter, was unable to pre-fish so I called on Jim Lukancic to help me out. I felt strongly that the tournament was going to be won downstream and that is where we spent most of our time. The fish were still migrating upstream and we couldn't connect with the right fish to say the least.

We did find one area that did not have a lot of boat traffic that I felt had great potential. Jim lost a real nice fish, I caught a legal and missed one. I thought if we fished this all day we could win the tournament but we could also zero. We moved on and hooked up with a couple of decent fish and found a pod of male Sauger's up to 19" with an occasional female Sauger mixed in.

The Plan

The night before the tournament I was not happy with the game plan I put together. I really wanted to go down river but it was extremely risky. If we didn't catch a couple of nice fish we would have to go upstream and fish with a lot of boats. I thought the best plan was to go upstream, catch a limit of 18-19" males with the hope of getting a bonus fish or two while fishing deep. This way we could get a quick limit before the fish were pressured and then focus on shallow, big fish, spots.

Day 1

We started right in the middle of the river in a community spot just upriver from takeoff. We had a limit by 9 AM, the problem, most were small with the exception of an 18-1/2 female Shooter caught. You can't win on Day 1 but you can fish yourself out of the tournament so we went into grinder mode. Slowly but surely we had put a decent limit in the boat. The highlight of the morning is when I dropped my left jigging rod on the gunnel as I went to net the fish. The rod took one bounce and went in the river. I tried to net the rod but missed. The entire time Shooter is yelling at me to net his fish. I was pretty bummed and told a couple of the boats next to us to let me know if they catch my rod.

The very next pass Shooter yells "get the net"! I run to the back of the boat and he had hooked my GLoomis rod right on one of the eyelets. We were screaming and giving high five's. I am sure most thought we were crazy! 

Greenhorn Shooter, who for the second year in a row didn't pre-fish, came out firing. About 12:30 he landed a 20" male walleye and all of sudden we had a decent bag of fish going. He also lost a big fish that would have been a huge help.

I decided to move into the first break from shore and it was game on. I lost a Sauger around 20" at the net. Shooter tickled its tail with the net as it swam away. Shortly later Shooter landed an 18-1/2" female Sauger. I made another pass and caught a 20", 3 pound 9 ounce, Sauger. All of a sudden we were in contention. We made several other passes with no success so we headed down river to the spot that caused me to lose sleep.

We made one pass at my spot with no luck. Knowing that females were on that shallow break we headed back for a couple more passes. Lucky we did as Shooter caught a really fat 18" Sauger at 3:05. We ended the day sorting through 15-20 keepers to weigh 14-02 which was good enough for 3rd place, less than a pound out of first.

Day 2

We headed out in 3rd place behind Mark Mearvy who is a two time winner and a jigging legend. In first were Adam and Steve Sandor winners in 2009 when we finished third. Top that off with Danny Plautz, another past winner in 5th. That is pretty good company. Mix that in with not being confident the bigger fish would be in the same spot and I had a restless night of sleep!

Just like last year, I was hot on day 2 and we were about on the same pace as day 1. Unfortunately, we had all males, four between 18-19" but we caught a ton of 14" Sauger's that we could not upgrade. We checked the shallow break where we caught them on Day 1 but they just weren't there. I thought we had around 9 pounds and wanted to get at least 10 to secure a check. We just couldn't get that last one and we died on our spot.

It was tempting to go down river as the word was out that a lot of big weights came out of an area down river. Tempting but not right so we waited for the fish that never came. We ended up weighing 9-06 and held onto to finish 16th good enough to cash a check.

I did talk to Danny Plautz after the tournament, who finished fourth, and he caught most of his fish where I wanted to fish. I wish we could have caught an upgrade and I would have made the run. I don't know if it would have made a difference as most of the fish Danny caught were early.

All things considered it was a good tournament. We put ourselves in a position to win we just didn't get it done. Shooter and I have been in the hunt down there several times. If we keep knocking one of these days the door will open for a win! With the risk of sounding like a Cub fan, wait until next year!

2015 Schedule - Here's My Chance

I have been anxiously waiting for the 2015 fishing season since November, 2008. New Years Day 2015 marked the start of the seventh year with my employer. I love my job and I love that I now get four weeks of vacation! This extra week will allow me to fish all four National Walleye Tour Tournaments along with one of my favorites, the MWL IL River. With gas prices at the lowest level since I began fishing tournaments and a schedule that fits my strengths, my opportunity is now.

MWC IL River - March 20-21

The longest running walleye tournament almost ended after last year's decision to have an artificial bait only tournament. The Spring Valley Walleye Club walked away from the MWC and will be holding the IL River Walleye Classic on the last weekend of March. This has always been the MWC weekend. Thankfully, politics aside, the MWC was able to find support in the community and moved up the tournament a week ensuring the streak will continue.

My partner Shooter and I have been in the hunt to win here three times including last year when we finished 3rd. I couldn't be happier with the week earlier start. The last three years I have been on a great bite the week before the tournament only to see those fish disperse when it counted. If conditions are right they will be there again. Unfortunately, that is a big IF as rapidly changing water conditions are the norm. This river will humble you in a hurry!

NWT Mississippi River Pool 4 - May 7-8

If you call your blog On the River with The Viver you better get excited about this one. I learned how to vertical jig plastics on Pool 4 and it is my favorite destination. I have fished 3 major tournaments here and have cashed two checks. I have had two really good tournament days but I haven't been able to put two really good days back to back. Fish will be in transition and will be difficult to catch in the same areas two days in a row. I am hoping to learn from past failures and have two consistent days. This will be the only NWT tournament that I will be sharing information with another angler. This will be a great help as he is a river rat and one of my fishing mentors.

NWT Leech Lake - June 12-13

Even though I have never fished Leech Lake I am really looking forward to this tournament. Fishing a lake for the first time that has 112,000 surface acres can be a bit overwhelming. This task is even more daunting when you are fishing alone. Fortunately there are resources available like Fishidy that allow me to identify areas that I will target long before I wet a line. If you are not a member of Fishidy I highly recommend becoming a member, it is worth every penny! I will also be reaching out to a few of my friends who have knowledge of Leech. I hope that I can also use what I have learned fishing deep structure on Lake Mendota to catch the "overs" along with some shallow water tactics for the "unders". Leech Lake has a slot limit, no fish can be kept between 20"-26" and only one can be kept over 26" per person.

NWT Green Bay - July 24-25

I have had some of the best fishing days of my life on Green Bay and the worst. Unfortunately, a few of the worst came on tournament days. One of my goals in 2014 was to be competitive on the Bay of Green Bay and I accomplished that at the NWT Bays de Noc. In fact I had a shot at the win sitting third after day 1. I wasn't able to make the adjustments on day 2 but did hold on to cash a check. I learned from that experience and I look forward to applying those learnings in July. We are launching out of Green Bay which should help me. I am assuming that the DNR will put a boundary at 45 miles north of the launch. This would take most of Door County out of play. There is so much structure in Door County that it is difficult for me to cover enough water. In the past I have tried to fish everywhere instead of concentrating on a few areas. 

NWT Championship Devils Lake - September 17-19

The 2015 schedule will finish with the Championship on Devils Lake. I have never fished here or the Missouri River system. From everything I have heard and read this is going to be a blast. Just about every tactic will come into play. I will be fishing this one alone as well and don't have any friends that I can go to for information. I will be leaning on tips, forecasts and marked catches from Fishidy. Once there I will be relying on my past experiences to see if I can come up with a plan that will be a little different.

I can't wait to get my Lund and Mercury Verado on the water. I love the schedule now I have to maximize my opportunity. Follow my season here and on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/RoyVivianProWalleyeAngler?ref=hl. 

MWC 2012 IL River - Recap

The first tournament of the year is in the books. Overall pre-fishing went well and the weather was unbelievable. Now it was time to see if we could we could execute our plan!

Day 1

Our hopes were high as we waited for takeoff in the fog. The temperature was in the upper 40's at takeoff which was cooler than it had been but still well above normal for this time of year. The water was up slightly with increased current. Isolated storms had hit up river on Friday which added debris and muddied the water. By Illinois River standards in the spring the river was still in great shape.

We were boat 66 and headed down river which is where most boats headed. We set up on the downstream side of a flat that is about a mile long. This area was no secret with almost half of the field fishing this area. We were prepared for company and hoped that we could fish inside the majority of the boats. We immediately caught fish as we trolled lead core in and out of boats. By the end of our first pass we had 3 keepers but nothing of any significance.

On our second pass we caught our biggest fish of the day, an 18-1/2" sauger that had spawned out. This was still a good fish but it really would have helped us if she was still carrying her eggs. We motored on weaving in and out of boats and caught a nice 17-1/2" sauger that was full of eggs. We were feeling pretty good at this point knowing that it was 8:30 and we had our limit. We were confident that we would be able to upgrade fish all day.

It was becoming apparent that the most productive spot was the last 200 yards of our mile run. Almost every time through this spot the story was the same, we would catch one or two and the inside rod would get hung up. Early on this was not an issue as most boats were fishing below this area. This soon would change as other boats in the area noticed we and other boats would catch one.

On our next pass everything was the same except there were more boats in this 200 yard stretch, most were jigging or using 3 ways. We were trolling in the opposite direction and going significantly faster. Like clockwork the back inside rod goes off and Mark reels in 1 16-1/2" sauger. I netted the fish when I looked up and noticed the back outside rod had a fish. Mark grabs the rod and says "good fish"! As I am working on the fish in the net the hook gets caught in the net. Mark is confirming it is a good fish and I look at the inside rod and it is in the, you know you are in the right spot, snag. Add in me trying to drive through 15 some boats and you have quite the fire drill. I get the fish and the lure out of the net, point the boat so we don't ram anyone and Mark cuts the motor. There must have been slack in the line for just a moment and the fish got off.

We had been slowing up for big fish but not stopping the motor. Mark did everything he could but with me panicking and both of trying to stay out of the way of others the fish took advantage and was gone. We will never know how big but Mark was sure it would have significantly helped us.

We continued on and the fishing slowed. We were still catching fish but not as fast or as big. It was 1:30 and we had to be back by 3. We decided to make one more pass. As usual we caught a fish in the last 200 yards but we also had two lines tangled. While Mark untangled the lines I decided to jig through the spot that was holding fish. I was fishing for maybe 2 minutes when one crushed my plastic. It wasn't huge but it was an upgrade. Unfortunately, this fish sealed our fate. Mark and I jigged through the area several times with nothing to show for our work. We were going to head to our secondary spot after our last pass but the time we spent jigging made that run impossible. This would turn out to be a big mistake.

We ended up weighing 8.73 pounds which was good for 39th place. Disappointing but, as expected, it was a crap shoot and only one team had over 12 pounds.

Day 2

Day 2 was a little slower for us to start. We caught 3 keepers within 15 minutes but before and after we were struggling. It was 11 o'clock and we decided to make the run that we were going to yesterday. We setup and instantly caught a fish and ended up with 3 more keepers on the first run. The bite up river probably slowed down due to the pressure. The fish in this spot had little pressure with only a couple of boats occasionally coming through and they were on a feeding frenzy.

We ended up catching 17-20 keepers on the day, I am not for sure as it was hard to keep track. The fish were all around 17 inch females with eggs and looked like clones. If we would have come down on Saturday we would have upgraded two fish as we weighed a 16-1/4" and 16-1/2" sauger. In most tournaments that is not a big deal, in this tournament it is a really big deal. When we were waiting to weigh in I used a culling board and scale to determine our best five fish. We had two that were slightly bigger but the other seven fish in the live well were identical in weight. Oh if we could have had those two yesterday!

We ended up with almost an identical weight with 8.63 pounds and moved up to 36th which was 6 spots and less that one half of a pound out of the money. We were only a pound and a half out of the top 10. Mark is convinced and I agree that if we would have spent more time at the power plant we would have cashed a check. The fish that got off on Saturday would have probably done the same! In this tournament there are a lot of teams that have similar stories which is probably why we can't wait to do it again!


Mark and I had a blast even though we didn't do as well as we had hoped. There are a lot of characters that fish these tournaments and it is fun giving each other a hard time. We did that for sure and laughed along the way. It was great to see the sportsmanship too as there were a lot of boats fishing close to each other. All of the boats were courteous which is always great to see. I was also impressed with my new Lund 1875 Pro V. If you have ever fished lead core in a group of boats using different tactics you know how tough it can be to control the boat. I was able to slide in and out of boats using my wireless remote on the front trolling motor without a single incident. One of the great things about the Lund 1875 Pro V is it is small enough to maneuver in tight traffic yet big enough to handle big water!

Another MWC Illinois River is in the books and I can't wait for next years!

Up next, the FLW opener on the Mississippi River in Red Wing!

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

FLW Green Bay Pre-Fishing

FLW Green Bay Pre-Fishing 7/16/11-7/20/11

I had high hopes going into my last “major” tournament of the year. I was not teaming with anyone for this tournament so I knew that I had to have a strong pre-fishing plan to cover as much water as possible in an efficient manner.

To cover as much water as possible I was able to get at least one of my friends to fish with me each day. This allowed me to double the amount of lines (3 baits per person) I could use. This is critical when fishing Green Bay as the walleyes can be anywhere in the water column and this allowed me to have baits from close to the surface to the bottom.

The consensus was 25 pounds a day would most likely be enough to make the top 10 cut. This turned out to be right on. Because I was not fishing all four FLW events points were not important. I needed to find fish that would produce a five-pound average.  Fish smaller than 22 inches need not apply!

Saturday, July 16

My friends Mark Michael and Chad Setterholm joined me as we launched out of Bay Shore Park on the eastern shore. The launch was packed and there was a big group of boats working the Vincent Point area. We stay out of the group and worked areas north and west. There was plenty of activity but most were Drum with a couple of small walleyes mixed in.

The highlight of this area was hooking into a trophy Muskie. I was running an 1-1/2 oz. bottom bouncer with crawler harness and a number 7 Hildebrand blade on the inside rod. I had a perch or drum short hit the bait so I reeled it in to check the crawler. We were fishing in 20 feet of water. With about 10 feet on the line counter a Muskie that was in the 50-inch range slammed the harness. I had the Muskie to the surface and close to the net three times. He eventually made a run and was threating to tangle a bunch of my lines so I thumbed the spool. Soon after he busted off and was gone. It would have been nice to get a photo but I had more important things to do, I needed to find big walleyes!

We then headed over to the area just south of Geano’s reef. This area had at least 100 boats fishing from Little Long Tail point up to Geano’s. I don’t like fishing in big crowds but we started on the 20 foot break and caught a 21” walleye and then a ton of drum. We knew there were fish in the area but we wanted to get away from the crowd so we headed out to the S.O.F.A. off of Geano’s reef.

What is the S.O.F.A.? I watched shark week on the National Geographic channel over the winter.  Scientists tracked Great White Sharks to an area in the middle of the ocean north of Hawaii. They thought the area was too deep for life and could not figure out why the Great Whites would winter there. It turns out the sharks were feeding on giant Octupus. They ended up calling it S.O.F.A., which stands for the Strategic Off Water Feeding Area. Although the area off from Geano’s is not really deep (23’-27’) it reminded me of the S.O.F.A as it is in the middle of nowhere. One thing is for sure the walleye’s are there because there is plenty to feed on!

We marked plenty of bait fish and walleyes. It did not take long until we started catching nice walleyes. In a little over three hours we caught 12 walleyes between 22” and 28”. Our biggest was 8-03 and our best five probably weighed a little over 30 pounds. We didn’t even spin on these fish to work them again! The good news is these are tournament winning fish. The bad news is the tournament does not start for five more days. Finding the potential winning fish on the first day of pre-fishing is often the kiss of death. Oh how I wished the tournament started tomorrow! Even though most of the boats were fishing to the south and west of us I was also concerned about fishing pressure, which could make things tougher during the tournament.

Sunday, July 17

Feeling pretty good after a great day on Saturday, we decided to launch out of the tournament launch in Oconto. I wanted to see what was going on up north so we headed to Green Island, which is east of Marinette. The wind was out of the south, which is perfect for Green Island. There were 6-7 boats working the south face of the island and so were a bunch of seagulls, pelicans and cormorants. The area was loaded with alewives both alive and dead. We worked the area hard with no success so I ruled out that area for the tournament and we headed to the weeds just north of Oconto.

After several passes it was clear the walleyes were not in this area. Because I was not working with anyone else and I had to make a choice of fishing north or south I decided it was best that I put more time in down south. I dropped Mark and Chad off and headed south. I tried several new areas with only one walleye to show for the day.

Monday, July 18

I shared the boat with Mike Manthe. Even though I had no luck at Green Island I did want to try the north eastern shore of Door County. You won’t catch as many fish in this area but the ones you do catch are big. We launched out of Egg Harbor and targeted reefs southeast of Chambers Island. Everything seemed right but we could not get bit, it is probably too early for the walleye migration to reach this area. There were also thousands of dead alewives and huge schools hanging outside of the reefs. I took that as a sign that if walleyes were there it would be tough to compete with the easy meals that waited for them. A big storm chased us off the water so we loaded up and re-launched at Bay Shore Park.

We headed back over to the S.O.F.A. and worked areas close to where I had caught them on Saturday. It took us a little while to find them but when we did it was on! We caught 8 between 23” and 26-1/2” in about an hour and a half including a double of 26 plus inchers. Our best 5 were probably in the 27 pound range. There were a couple concerns though. First, due to a lack of wind and hot temperatures the surface water temperature rose to 79 degrees. Second there were a lot more boats in the area. This was no secret!

Tuesday, July 19

I shared the boat today with fellow Madisonian Don Doran. In the past I have made the mistake of not knowing an area good enough. Because the S.O.F.A. is so large I decided to spend all of Tuesday working this area. I was careful not to fish any on my waypoints. At noon we only had one 21” fish. We started working a new stretch close to where I was catching them and we got into them again. It was like a broken record as we caught 7-8 with the top 5 again in the 26-27 pound range. Even though the fish were coming easy I was getting more concerned as it seemed 80 percent of the field was fishing the area and more were fishing close to where I was fishing.

Wednesday, July 20

I decided I had learned all I needed to down in the S.O.F.A. so I decided to fish between Oconto and my primary area. We spent a lot of time driving around looking for bait fish in areas similar to my primary area down south. We found an area that was loaded with bait fish. It was also loaded with drum! We lost two good fish and caught one nice walleye. I was hoping to find a backup area but I just did not have enough time. This was a short day as we had the rules meeting at 4 and I had a ton of work to do so we were off of the water by 1 PM.

I was really optimistic but I was also very nervous.  Catch my next blog entry will cover the tournament days to see if I could stay on them.

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!

MWC IL River Recap

The first tournament of the year is over. Although it was disappointing finishing 52 out of 123 it was still a great time. Lessons were learned, the bite was great and the new Lund/Mercury is everything that I expected and much more! Here is a recap of the pre-fishing with part II coming soon.

Pre-Fishing

March 19-20 - One of my favorite things about fishing tournaments is I get to spend a few days pre-fishing with friends that I normally I do not get to spend a lot of time with. On the 19th I shared the boat with one of my high school buddies, Scott Gordon who lives in Bloomington, IL and one of my fishing mentors (Sat and Sun), Mark Michael who lives in Princeton, IL. We spent the morning trolling number 9 rapalas and some custom stick baits down at the clam beds. The bite was pretty good when we concentrated on a tight break in 14 to 17 feet of water. Most fish were in the 15 to 17 inch range with a few a little bigger like the one Scott is holding above.

We jigged through the same area with similar results. I tried to jig, against doctors orders, with my broken left arm. I thought I could get away with it, that was until I tried to set the hook on a fish that absolutely crushed my jig and plastic. I screamed with pain and dropped my rod immediately. Needless to say the boys gave me a hard time and questioned if I had a fish at all. I learned my lesson, at least for the next couple of days, and only jigged with my right arm.

We moved up to the Peru flats for the afternoon and caught a few. When I tried to start up the brand new Verado nothing happened. Uh Oh! We used my kicker motor to get back to launch. At the time we thought the batteries were wired wrong, which they were. After the tournament we found the new battery was also bad and wasn't holding a charge which led to an interesting situation the last day of the tournament which I will discuss in Part II. Mark and I were going to fish the IWT the next morning but with the uncertainty of the battery situation we decided to make sure everything was working Ok for the next weekend as being dead on the water during the tournament is not a good thing!


Day 2 Mark and I spent the day checking spots from Spring Valley up to the Starved Rock dam. We jigged all day and caught fish everywhere we went. The bite was awesome with most fish again in the 15-17 inch range. However, we were able to get a couple that were close to 2-1/2 pounds. There was an eddy near the dam that was absolutely loaded with fish. We could have sat there all day and pounded 15-17 inch saugers but we knew we had to find bigger fish so we moved on.

Mark Mearvy and his partner won the IWT with 6 fish that weighed over 19 lbs. They caught them where we were fishing on Saturday in the clam beds. The rest of the field was stacked between 9 and 13 lbs. This verified our thoughts that the MWC was going to be a shootout. Finding the bigger fish was going to be the key.

March 21-23 - To save vacation days for later tournaments I went back to work. The nice thing is I had a sales meeting in Chicago those three days so I was able to drive straight from Chicago Wednesday night which saved me some time. I hate not spending a whole week on a body of water prior to a tournament as it puts us at a disadvantage to our competitors as most spend the entire week pre-fishing. If there is one tournament to skip a few days it is the MWC IL River as spring conditions usually change everything. It looked like this was going to be the case as rains drenched the upper midwest Monday and Tuesday. Somehow the majority of the rains did not fall in the IL River watershed. The river did rise about two feet but I returned to find the river in excellent shape.

March 24 - Two days prior to the tournament, now it is time to get to work! Dale Bowman, the outdoors writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, was supposed to be fishing with me but had to cancel. In his place I recruited my long time fishing buddy Brad Munda to help me find the right fish. My partner for the tournament, Ol' Shooter brought his boat. Our plan is to cover as much water as possible looking for big female sauger. Brad and i will jig through the same area that Shooter trolls through.

We start right near the launch and I caught a couple decent saugers. We then headed down to the clam beds. The bite was on but nothing huge. Shooter caught a good one on the green can side of the river. Brad and I jigged up one about 2-1/2 pounds and then we pulled it upriver with a three way rig. Almost immediately I caught one about 2-1/2 pounds on the dropper jig. Not a bad start, time to head to the next spot.

Shooter got a head start up river and called us over when we reached the peru flats. He had already caught 2 good fish with one a pre-spawn female sauger that was almost 20 inches. Brad and I jigged through the same area and we each caught two 19" pre-spawners and a 17" male who was milking like a cow. These are tournament winning fish, if they are still there on Saturday we have a great shot of winning this thing. To make things even better, nobody was fishing this area.  Mark and I had fished it last Sunday and we only caught a couple of small ones. This is the same area that we finished 3rd a couple of years ago so we were feeling pretty good.

We got out of there and headed up and across the river to a place the locals call Auggies. There were a bunch of boats fishing the outside bend. If you stayed tight to the break the bite was really good, if you slipped off of it, not so much. In the middle of the pack of boats I caught one that looked like it was 18-1/2" or so. It was one of the rare ones that I hooked with my bad arm. I tried to hide it from everyone so I just held onto my rod and acted like I was dragging my jig and would try to shake it off when no one was looking. I only had one more tournament boat to hide it from. He was trolling 3 ways up-river and asked how we were doing. I said "oh, one here and there, nothing of any size". The entire time my rod tip is pounding. Just when I think we are clear the fish comes up to the surface and the guy said "he's got a good one" and pointed at me. I felt pretty bad and said I just didn't want everyone to see it. The games played are kind of funny and is worth a blog at a different time.

Brad and I ended the day with 26 keepers that we put in the boat with several more that we could have gotten in had we used the net and were not hiding fish. Shooter had 14 by himself, we were feeling pretty good.

March 25 - We have the same game plan as the day before. Today Brad fished with Shooter and Mark Michael fished with me. We decided to head to Utica and fish our way down river. Mark and I absolutely killed them with fish after fish. We had 10 keepers on our first pass. We went through a bit of a dry spell when I noticed a change in the bottom on my humminbird. I was just about to say something when Mark said "there's one". It turned out to be a fat, pre-spawn, walleye. Kicker fish like this is what we need tomorrow!

Everywhere we went we caught fish and so did Brad and Shooter. Even though we caught decent fish including one that I would die for the next day we were convinced the spot we caught fish yesterday was going to give us the best opportunity to win. We headed in feeling pretty good.

Coming soon - See what and how we did, warts and all, during the tournament with part II .

Special thanks to Mark and Brad for helping us out!

MWC IL River - What's So Special?

The 25th anniversary of the MWC Illinois River tournament is less than two weeks away. For my MWC partner, Shooter (Scott Pirnstill) and I it will be our sixth straight. This tournament is special to me for a number of reasons. 

Even though I grew up only an hour and fifteen minutes from the tournament site I only fished the IL River once prior to fishing my first tournament in 2006. In 1983 or 1984 the river was getting a lot of attention as it was re-awaking after being used as a dumping ground for much of the 20th century. I was a wide eye kid addicted to fishing and a regular reader of Midwest Outdoors Magazine. In one of the spring issues I saw a headline “First Annual White Bass Tournament”. I sent my $5 entry fee in and begged my parents to take me.

I read everything I could find on how to catch white bass. I watched every fishing show that was on TV hoping for any tips that would help me. I scraped up enough money to buy a couple of sonars, gay blades, little george’s, road runners and twister tails. I was so excited to go and literally counted the days. 

Two days before the big day I was pitching in a Babe Ruth league game. I was covering home plate after a passed ball (Brian Rubis will say it was a wild pitch). I stepped on home plate and slipped as I was reaching for the ball. The runner slid and kneed me in the head. I probably had a concussion but it went down as my bell being rung. Regardless, my dad said that I could not fish the white bass tournament. I was absolutely crushed. I threw an absolute fit and finally my dad agreed to take me to the tournament. I am sure the only reason he agreed was he knew it was the only way to shut me up.

I set up on the wall at the Starved Rock dam and casted everything in my tackle box. Not only did I not catch a fish but I did not get a bite. I was disappointed but remember thinking “if I only had a boat”.

Fast forward twenty-two years or so to 2006. I had always wanted to fish tournaments and finally had a boat to give it a try. I had hired a local guide, Joe Okada, to take a customer out on Lake Mendota. Joe encouraged me to find a partner and fish the first tournament of the year on the IL River. I called up ‘Ol Shooter and we signed up. We were as blind to this tournament as I was in the first White Bass tournament.

We pre-fished for the tournament and ending up finding some decent fish on the Thursday before the tournament. Disappointment soon followed as the computer on my outboard motor went bad and no one had one in stock. That meant we had to fish the tournament with my 15 horse kicker motor. I was again crushed. Upstream we could go a healthy 3.1 mph while downstream we maxed out a blazing 4.1 mph!

Honestly, I don’t think we thought we had a chance to do well with my motor running, now with only my kicker motor we didn’t think we had a chance at all. That is exactly what happened the first day as we caught one 2.93 lb. sauger that was good for something like 181st out of 220 boats. I remember ‘Ol Shooter saying “We are good fishermen but these guys are really good”. Basically he thought we were over our heads.

With no expectations on day 2 we putted up river just hoping to catch a fish. Just like the day before we caught a nice one early and instead of feeling sorry for ourselves we actually started fishing. We went through a bit of a lull but then we put on a clinic right in the middle of a pack of boats that was not catching anything. 

We ended up catching our limit that was the eighth heaviest weight of the day. Eighth heaviest out of 220 really good teams? Holy Crap! We zoomed up and finished 57th. Now we did not make a dime but this gave us the confidence that we could compete at a high level and I have been hooked ever since.

In 2008 we were 4th after day one and ended up 11th. In 2009 we finished 3rd. We had opportunities to win in both of these tournaments but just didn’t get it done. There are not a lot of opportunities to win at this level so when you have a chance you have to take advantage. Hopefully, we are a little wiser and will use our experience to close the door if we are in the hunt. 

Is this our year? I sure hope so. I do know one thing for sure, I can’t blame it on not having a boat!

MWC Changes Creates an Opportunity

The Masters Walleye Circuit (MWC) recently changed the criteria for qualifying for their yearly championship. To the MWC's credit they listened to their anglers who felt the system was unfair. For those who are unfamiliar with the MWC there are three divisions. The prior rules stated that you had to fish all three tournaments in your division with each team getting points based on their performance. Each division was allotted a certain amount of teams, based on points (think Nascar), who would qualify for the championship.

Without getting two specific there were two major issues. One was how points were calculated which came about after a tournament on the IL River where only four fish were caught by 200 teams (400 anglers). The other, many felt the Central Division, which had more anglers, received an unfair amount of "championship berths".

The MWC changed how they calculate points and also allowed anglers to fish any three tournaments to qualify for the championship, not just the ones in a specific division. You can find out more by reading their press release http://masterswalleyecircuit.com/Headlines/tabid/161/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/29/Cabelas-MWC-Revises-World-Championship-Qualifications.aspx.

I am not a big fan of politics and since I listen to WIFM (What's In it For Me) I wanted to see how the rule change affects me and my fishing partner 'Ol Shooter. One of the biggest changes is going to happen to the only tournament 'Ol Shooter and I will fish, the Central Division Opener on the Illinois River. Prior to the changes teams also could qualify by fishing all three tournaments in their division along with the Challenge tournament which was always the IL River. This brought in additional anglers from the East Division and more recently the new West division. This helped make it one of the most attended tournaments on the circuit. This rule change looks like it will reduce the field as some will choose another "challenge" tournament while others might skip it all together and fish a tournament closer to home in another division. The question is does a smaller field increase our chances?

Shooter and I have fished the last four MWC tournaments on the IL River. The first year we had to enter a lottery just to be one of the 220 teams. The numbers dwindled down to 100 in 2009 and rebounded to 160 last year. I think this year the MWC will be lucky to get 100 anglers. If that is the case, just by the numbers, our chances are better. However, regardless of the number of anglers we are going to have to catch big saugers to win. I expect the winning weight to be similar to the last couple of years. The weight is always going to be dependent on the river conditions. However, with fewer fisherman the fish will be less pressured which could lead to bigger weights for the teams that find the big, female, saugers. Regardless of numbers, this tournament will be loaded with good fisherman including local legends.

I would love to see 220 teams again but that does not look like reality. If the number of teams are down we think we can find a few spots that nobody else is fishing and make a milk run of those spots along with the "community" spots. This is a tournament that we have had a chance to win in the past and one that we think we can win. If the number is 2 or 220 we are going to fish to win! I can't wait!