Little Bay de Noc..Big Walleye!

Per my recent reports the bite has been 90% small males thus far on the Bay. The weather hasn’t cooperated either …but thats fishing. The first picture is a typical 24" Green Bay Walleye that fell to a 1/2oz red/blk Zone R/Kalin grub combo Tuesday in 29′ of water off a long mid-lake rock reef. Yesterday I had the pleasure of fishing with John Fornetti and his dad Ted from Iron Mountain, Mi. We started in deep water near the shipping channel where the action has been for the past week.

Ted had his Lindy rig w/Phelps Floater in the water before I even had the Drift Sock(sea anchor)down. He set the hook and was immediately into a good fish. The way the 6’6" St Croix rod was bent and drag singing I knew it was a dandy! With a little coaching this beautiful 28" post spawn walleye was netted.

For the next several drifts we caught only youngsters 12-15" long, even though we tried a few different locations. Now when the other guys are into fish I can’t help but test out other colors/presentations to try to develop patterns(ala James"walleye master"Holst). I put on a new 1/2 oz Nuckleball Metallic Blue jig with a BFisnN Tackle Kalin grub in firecracker color. I might add I have been trying some new superbraid lines for deep jigging and the 8# StrenBraid has really worked well for me on spinning gear. I located a small hump in 34′ of water that came up a few feet. I dropped the jig down as we drifted over the structure and soon I was into a dandy! It was quite a battle on my lightweight Legend rod. This walleye was 30" long and very recently spawned. I estimated the weight at 10-11#..(I HAVE to break down and buy a good digital scale)I’m sure this girl has potential of being an easy 12-13# by late fall!

We finished out the day with several more juvenile fish. Its only going to get better on the Bays as the spawners resume their feeding patterns with warming temperatures. Right now the fish are still deep but with some stable weather the bite is definitely improving.