Had the fourth annual T&T walleye tournament this past weekend. This is a little tournament that some friends of ours throw, but it seems to have some great local fishermen in it.
Tony and I have fished it the last couple years with mediocre success, but it is still a great time. Due to having to work the previous weekend and having to work late on Friday we had no idea as to what to expect. Of course my Dad and brother were dialed in on some fish while pre-fishing on Friday and wouldnt tell us as we were the competition.
Sat am roles around and Tony and I had a game plan in mind. Conditions were good that we were gonna work on some gravel waypoints pulling blades and work our way down the East side of the lake. Well by 10:30 we had five nice keepers in the box and our goal was to finish out our six keepers then go big fish hunting around noon. Wouldnt you know it the next 4 fish were all in the 18.25 to 19″ range and then some over 20″ toss backs. By 12:30 I was starting to panic a little. We had been fishing one spot all morning and decided to check out another waypoint…..Taking off Tony was having trouble getting the boat to plane out. I look down and there was water coming through the carpet. So i told Tony and we stopped. Spent the next hour and a half trying to figure out the problem then solve it. Turned out the areator pump housing was cracked and there was a small leak. Just great. Got it fixed enough so that we could continue fishing. By this time it was 2:00 pm and weigh in was two hours away. I told Tony that i think we should probably go back to where we had fish and try to see if we can get two more little ones. He said sure so we were on our way. We had two way points about 1/4 mile from where we were fishing and Tony was like lets swing in there and do one pass. Two minutes later I pulled a dandy 17.5″. GAME ON….made a couple more passes and Tony pulled a 16.75″ and we each had a couple overs. At 3:30 we pulled the plug and went to weigh in. Ended up having a bag of 10.28lbs for six fish…good enough for first place and a decent little check.
The standard Hammered gold blades produced the best for us, although i was trying many different colors and styles trying to dial in the fish a little better. Throughout the day I think our total was 28 fish came to the boat with 5 or 6 lost. Our speeds varied throughout the day. Started slow at about 1 mph and ended the day doing 1.6 mph…adjust to the fish people…sorry no time for pics but it was a great day on the water.
Charles Schmidtbauer
