Just finished up my first walleye tournament at Johnson Lake. After not doing too well pre-fishing on Wed, Thur and especially Fri (long story, none of it good), my partner Jeremy and I hit the lake early Saturday morning. It took us a while to get going, but we did end up pulling our 5 fish, but it took all day long. Didn’t get our 5th until about 2:20. We weighed 10.60 on day 1, winding up in 5th.
Day 2 had us leaving a half hour earlier at 7, and it worked out well today, to start. We had quite a few fish in the boat before 8:30, which turned out to be a good thing. Our bite completely died after about 11:30am, so it was a good thing we got some of our fish early. Our suspended fish that we were trolling just left the area, and no matter how hard we looked, we just couldn’t find them again. I’m thinking there’s a good chance they moved up and things turned into a live bait bite. We weighed only 4 today for 6.6, ending with 17.2. That made us slide down to 10th place, which was still good for cashing a check. If only we coulda got that 5th fish… 
The winning weight was a whopping (for Johnson Lake!) 30lbs, and I believe 2nd was around 23 or so. Don’t remember what 3rd’s weight was, but my cousins from CO took that place, and they say they were live baiting. We trolled the entire time, and the one crank that stood out was a Producer’s Double Downer, which is merely a Hot’n’Tot copy. There were a few other baits that caught fish here and there, but none were as consistent as the DD.
The fishing at Johnson is likely to only get better in the coming weeks. If you’re headed out that way, I have a feeling you’ll be doing better the shallower you fish. And don’t forget about the smallies; they’ll be providing a lot of fun this month as well. In fact, they already have, but it’ll get better. See you out there–
