Storm Lake IA Walleyes April 20/21/22

I was off early Friday mourning on my way to Storm lake to pre-fish for the upcoming I.O.W.A. walleye tounement.When I arrived I found the water temps in the low 50,s and the spawn was coming to a close.My thought was that with the water temp exspected to rise a few more degrees that crankbaits was the way to go.I was not disapointed in the results.

As you can see by my photo of the lake we had less than ideal conditions.We had winds from 15 to 40 mph all weekend which really limited area,s that were fishable.I started trolling shallow first with limited results and moved out to the 7to 8 ft range and thats were I found fish.On Fri and Sat I had decent succes trolling jointed shad raps in firetiger and they had to be ticking the bottom. The fish were very speed sensitive and trolling any slower or faster than 2.25 mph you just did not get bit.

Now it was Sunday and game day and I thought that me and my partner Mike Cira had these fish wired. I was soon to be dissapointed as we made a few passes and only one over slot 18 in fish and a short fish.We discussed the situation and decided that we best be exspermenting.I was marking fish a foot off the bottom that I had not seen the previous two days.I long lined a shallow shad rap in firetiger 6ft down in 7ft and stayed at 2.25mph and we were in business.We then adjusted the board rods to standerd shad raps in firetiger and long lined shallow raps out the back with chartruse having decent results also.After we got all the rods adjusted we had a ball with at one time three fish on at once in a tourny situation thats not a bad problem to have.At the end of the day we had boated numerous 13 to 16.5 in fish and four over 17 and enough weight for a fourth place finish in a storm shortened day.

When I came to the dock on sat there was this young lad trying his luck with dad and dad wanted to get going but dad let him make one more cast and pose for a pic.I could not resist posting this pic. (Its just what its all about)