Sherman Reservoir Walleye Report 4-15-07

I fished Sherman Reservoir this last week from Thursday throught Sunday. Thursday and Friday were spent prefishing for the 1st Annual State Farm Open Walleye Tournament that was held on Saturday and Sunday out of Trade Winds Marina. The weather was forecasted to be horrible with a chance of some snow and wind on Friday but mother nature decided to be good to us in central Nebraska and she sent the snow South to Kansas.

My cousin Pete Meister was my tournament partner and we headed up to Sherman on Thursday morning to begin prefishing for the highest payout walleye tournament ever in Nebraska. We got on the water Thursday around 12:00 and started working on our game plan to find fish that could win us the tournament. With the weather we had been having over the last several weeks we knew the bite could be tough. The water temperature was 43 degrees Thursday when we got on the water and that was 10 degrees less than it was 2 weeks prior. We were counting on the spawn being very near the end and knew that with lots of water coming into the lake that the walleye would be scattered out all over the lake. We fished half a dozen areas or so on Thursday and didn’t catch a single walleye. We focused on areas that we knew would be less pressured by fishermen come Saturday morning. We pitched jigs with plastics and also did some live bait rigging as well. After eliminating several spots from our game plan on Thursday we knew we had some work to do on Friday.

We got up early and were one of the first boats on the water Friday morning. We first headed to the dam to see if there were still any males hanging around after the spawn. There was definately a few still around but they were all just a little shy of the 18 inch minimum it takes to put them in the livewell. We then headed to another area that we knew would be a busy area but should hold some good numbers of fish. There we caught several more shorts and a one keeper before heading on to pitch plastics on some shallow flats. While pitching these flats we were able to mark some decent fish in 6 to 10 feet of water but were only able to get one hook up that came off half way to the boat. It felt like a walleye that had some size to it but we were still without a good place to start the tournament Saturday morning. We decided at the end of the day to check out one last area that we had been holding out on. We got to the area and right away we started to mark some really nice fish on the Lowrance. We were running out of time before we had to be at the tournament meeting so we didn’t even wet a line in this area we just looked around and kept marking huge fish. I told Pete I thought that we should make this area the first place we head on Saturday and he agreed that we needed to see if those fish on the Lowrance were indeed walleye.

The first day of the tournament brought us beautiful weather. Winds were light which always makes an easy day for boat control. We headed to our first area and it only took just a few minutes to see that the fish we graphed were still there. We knew the easiest way to get a presentation to these fish was by running live bait rigs. We baited up with the largest shiners that we could find and got down to business. After an hour and a half we were begining to wonder when we would get to find out what kind of fish we had been graphing and then it happened. I heard Pete say "FISH ON" and looked back to see his rod bent to the water. Our first fish was in the boat and it was a good one. A 28 incher is a great way to start a tournament! We followed up our first keeper with a fat 18 1/2 incher and knew we could be in this if we could just put together a limit of 5 fish to take to the scales. We stayed in this area until noon and only had 2 fish in the box. We headed to our second spot where there was several other boats. We worked our way into the mix and caught a couple of short walleye before Pete caught a nice 19 1/2 eye. We were very glad to have 3 fish in the box and still had a couple of hours to go. Around 1:30 I hooked into a big fish in 30 feet of water. I didn’t want to take any chances of losing this fish so I left my drag fairly loose to reduce the chance of breaking my line. It took several minutes to get this fish up but when it finally came into view I knew we were going to be in the top of the field at the end of the day. Pete netted the fish and it was an awsome 29 1/2 incher. I knew that we needed to get her to the scales right away after the fight she gave me. She was belly up in the livewell as soon as we put her in there so we wasted no time in heading to the scales. Within minutes we pulled up to the docks and I took all 4 fish with me to the scales while Pete was required to stay with the boat. They asked me to pick our big fish out of the 4 and I picked the 29 1/2. She weighed in at 8.92 lbs. and swam off just fine after she was released. I lost track of time and thought we only had 15 minutes or so left to fish so we thought about loading the boat for the day, but the tournament director pointed out to us that we had close to an hour to go. We headed back down the lake to another area we had caught some short fish while prefishing and we were only there for about 4 minutes when I got a bite. I set the hook and was shaking so bad I couldn’t tell how big the fish was. I thought for sure it was another big one. We already had our 2 fish over 22 inches and another one would have to be released imediately. When we finally got the fish in the boat it turned out to be 20 1/2 inches and we now had our 5 fish daily tournament limit. We headed back to the scales and weighed the fish and finished the day with 23.52 lbs. We had the boat on the trailer 25 minutes before the first flight had to be in. After watching everyone weigh in we came out in the lead by 3.52 lbs. What an incredible feeling.

Sunday morning we were ready to go see if we could repeat what we did the day before. The wind was blowing harder than it was the day before and we knew it was going to be harder to navigate some of the breaks like we did Saturday. We decided to hit the same spots that we did on Saturday in the same order. We got to the first area and I didn’t even have my second line out and I had a bite on my other rod. It was a short but it sure did get the blood pumping. It took us about 45 minutes to get another fish when Pete hooked into another nice fish. We got the fish in the boat and we didn’t even measure the fish. We guessed it to be around 26 inches and put it in the livewell. We finished out the day hitting the same areas as we did Saturday at similar times but were not able to get any more keepers. We were a little worried that we may loose the lead but were confident that we would still collect a check. After we returned to the check in boat they sent us to a boat slip with the other teams in the top ten. We had to sit there and wait for all the other teams to weigh in before we could go weigh our one fish. We could hear Bill Seibert the tournament director anounce that they had a new leader at one point and Pete and I were begining to get a little nervous. When we got to the scales we found out that we needed around .25 lbs to get the win. They weighed our 1 fish at 6.93 lbs and we were the winners. We were deffinately the two happiest guys around. This was the start of our 4th year fishing walleye tournaments together and this was our first win. We were in the option pot which gave us another bonus check of $700.00 bringing our prize total to $10,700.

I’d like to thank State Farm, Bill Siebert, Scott Placzek, and Tim Hofman for all of the time and work they put into this tournament. I also would like to thank Pete’s and my sponsors – Jolly Ann Marine, B Fish N Tackle, Emerald Mini Mart and Bait, State Farm agent Doug Bolliger, Floors Inc., Four Paws Pet Grooming, AA Leupold Painting, and Wild Mans Bar and Grill. Without your help Pete and I couln’t have made this happen.