Friday Evening was looking like a great trolling night with light 5-10 mph winds and a chance to be on the water with summer coming to an end quick with college only a month away I figured I better get back out and do some long line trolling on Lac Courte Orllies in Wisconsin.
Checking the weather showed that it was supposed to get windy around 11 p.m. but I figured we would go out and give it a shot.
After the hour drive up there I drove around to find the biggest concentrations of baitfish to decide where I wanted to make my runs for the night. With only 69 degree water temps I figured this might change the bite a little bit. Several of my favorite areas had little baitfish in them and I knew that I could find better areas so we headed out to deeper water and the locator lit up like a christmas tree.
I brought out a 13 year old who had never caught a walleye till I brought him out last summer trolling with some boards for smaller walleyes.
TOnight though I wanted to get him a bigger fish. With that in mind I didnt really pay attention to the few fish that were high up in the water column. We were looking for the concentrations of fish which were solid 30-35 feet down. It was hard to mark good archs with all of the baitfish filling the screen on my lowrance.
So I set up two leadcore rods with 3 and 4 colors and 4 rods with snap weights.
Like I said earlier we both wanted to try for a bigger fish so we went with a lot of lead to get to those fish! I tried with several different combinations untill we finally hooked up with our first fish at 9:15. A solid fat and chunky 18 inch walleye fell for our bait on 3 ounces of lead. With that fish in the boat I changed setups and tried to figure out some more fish. I dropped down the 3 ounces of lead again and then also a 2,4 and 5 ounces to spread through the water column and get down deeper.
It did not take long and we had another fish on. A nice 20 inch score for the little guy on 5 ounces of lead. So the deep rods were working also. I quickly changed the 2 ounce to a 6 ounce and kept at it. WIth two fish in the boat by 10 it was time to get a bigger fish. We did two more passes and finally got a solid hit at 11 on 4 colors of lead. I told brett is was a nice fish as I handed him the rod and within a few seconds the fish was lost.
It felt like a great fish so I felt bad for the kid so I got the rod back out there and it wasnt long and the rod with 4 colors went of again at 11:15. Brett reeled the fish in and scored with a great 23 inch. We had figured something out with a deep pattern and had to keep going becuase the storms were nipping at our heals and the fish were biting. We went around again and at 11:40 the inside board with 5 ounces of lead went of again and brett reeled in his personal best 24 inch fat pig!!
He was tickled pink and smiling ear to ear. The biggest walleye he has ever caught before this was 17.25″. He was like a kid in a candy store and I cant blame him. I was just as excited myself to get him on such a fun bite. It wasnt but another 5 minutes after the last fish was released and the winds started ripping and the rain was pelting us.
I could tell he was a little nervous with the bigger waves in the dark and decided to pull the plug so I wouldnt ruin his fun night.
He had a great time and we headed back home to get some rest
I was pretty proud of the little guy for staying up and fishing late with me. I will definitly take him out again.
Jordan
August 3, 2009 at 6:20 pm
#1263856