What a week it was!

Whew! What a week! Actually a couple of weeks! I fished the FLW League event a week ago, and posted a disappointing 22 place finish. The weather cleared up for the early part of the week, and the fish in Pool 3 absolutely turned on! I fished the FLW Tour event as a Co-angler as they needed a few guys. I wish I would have fished as a boater! Next year I will! Tuesday before the rules meeting, I boated 4 fish for a total of 18.06 pounds! Those fish remained going for the tournament. The fish in the picture is a 27" that succumbed to a #5 Jointed Rapala. I got to fish with a number of guys this week, and fished a number of different presentations. I could do a report on each of them! But I wont. Thanks to Russ McDonald, Bill Ortiz and Tom Backer whom all took great care of me during the week.

Congrats to Jeff Ryan, fellow G3 driver and team mate! Jeff shattered records for weight during the week! He didn’t even have to fish Saturday! (Look to the Tournament Forum for additional info on the FLW results.)

Saturday the kids and I hit Lake Pepin for the morning and early afternoon, and scored a bunch of nice sauger. Unfortunately due to camera issues, we have no pictures. We dragged lead core over 20 feet of water with jointed #5 Raps.

Sunday, Mike Zuidema of Spokane Washington wished to break his personal best walleye mark by booking a trip with IDA Guide Service. I took Mike to some backwater and main channel wing dams to accomplish the mission. These wingies and cuts have been on fire all week, and should only get better. If a person ever wanted to learn to fish wingies, now is the time to do it! Fish are crushing leeches, cranks and willow cats like they will not make another! Mike got on the board early and often, boating over a dozen fish over 18"!

As the morning moved into the early afternoon, Mike boated a 24" fish that made him grin like a Cheshire cat! The walleye gods smiled on him whole heartedly today. The fish were relating to current seams. With the high water right now, the fish were tight-tight-tight to these seams. Both on main channel runs along rip rap, and sand. Wing dams are holding fish in the usual seams along the face of the dams. Some dams can be pitched with live bait right now, but I have been opting to troll cranks on them. You really have to be on the "Spot on the Spot" to provoke a strike. When you do, KABOOM! They hit with authority! Here is a 24" that Mike took today doing just that.

Later on in the afternoon, I went to a few icons that produced for me while prefishing for the recent events. I was pulling through the trough, and I mentioned to Mike that I see a couple of big fish on my Garmin 250C. As I turned around, he was setting the hook saying "Whoa-Whoa-Whoa!" The St. Croix 10’6" Wild River rod loaded up instantly, and handled the big fish splendidly! The fish came to the surface out a ways from the boat, and I noticed only one hook of the treble in her lip! I told Mike to just "Keep ‘er coming sloooooowly…" He did a great job of it and landed his biggest walleye in his 40 years. A nice 27" fish! Congrats Mike! It was a pleasure to fish with you today! All in all, I burned 135 gallons of gas through the Yamaha 150 and the T-8! I covered a lot of water from Alma to Prescott! It is running like a charm! The G3 185 XT is hitting speeds of 50 MPH going down river to 48 MPH under normal conditions. I am extremely happy with this set-up. If you do not have a Trollmaster yet, you may want to look into it. Pretty darn nice! You can dial the kicker down to an absolute crawl, or burst to WOT at a push of a button!

Take care! See you on the water!

Tuck