Another early season of walleye fishing has come. The opener was a week earlier than normal this year, but for most the fishing was aweful. Come the 2nd weekend many teams caught nice bags of fish pitching shallow and moving deeper as the day went. When this past thursday rolled around I was on the water at 7am for my first day of prefishing for the MTT. on the first spot within the first 5 minutes I had a perfect slot fish coming in just under 20". This fish along woth a couple others came on the new Berkley Flicker Shad. These baits are shaped and have similar dive curves to a #5 and #7 Shad Rap, but half the cost, and with rattles. With all the wind that Big Stone has seen and as off color the water was, I think the rattles helped. Off to my 2nd spot and I caught several Sheephead, white bass and a couple pike and largemouth bass. The locals say there was a huge spawn of largies recently and the lake is full of 12" bass. I have to agree.
Next I decided to work some deeper water and began trolling the 8′-9′ depths. It didn’t take long to hook up, but this thime it was one of the 7 big perch we caught over the weekend. It too hit the Flicker Shad. the biggest thing was to cover water until you marked fish on the Lowrance, and than work the area until you figured out what the fish wanted. I got into a school of walleys that gave me 2 fish each time through between 17"-21". I continued to hit similar areas with similar success. At the same time I was out, my partner was fishing another part of the lake doing even better than I was. Friday we jumped in the same boat to pull some spinners in some new areas. We managed to catch a few this way as well, but had lots of short hits.
The Saturday tournament was delayed at 7am until 9am due to lightning. We went back to my partner’s house to wait it out. Things didn’t look good on the weather channel, nor outside with lightning and hail. At 9 the anglers met back at the access and the tournament was cancelled. My partner and I as well as 2 guys we were working with held off for about 30 minutes and then went fishing as the lightning had stopped. We stayed close to the access just in case, but were able to fish until 3 with no problem. Figures. And the fish were snapping. The fist fish Mike caught was on of many pike over the weekend. After that we really got into the walleyes trolling, but not nearly as good as our partner boat. They managed a 24" and a 26" walleye with the rest of their tournament limit over 18". They were really wishing it had not been cancelled. They even made a run to Watertown to get more baits as well as a couple more line couter combos for Sunday. Unfortunately extreamly high winds caused Sunday to be cancelled as well.
Big Stone is in great shape and from the 3 days we were out the walleyes, pike, white bass, largetmoth bass, perch and sheephead and more than abundant. All the fish were very fat except for a couple of the pike that were a little skinny. Locals say there is a big population of 18"-21" fish, and I would have to agree. Giving the bite, I would have expected to see many limts brought in. See everyone back out there next year!
Mike,
Nice trip report, sorry to hear of the tourney’s being cancelled, but am sure it was the right call, considering the wind and storms, and the number of boats that were there.
The last couple of years my club has been to Big Stone/Traverse lake the end of April, and due to weather and winds the last couple of trips there, we headed to Pool 5 a week and a half ago. That weekend was great weather, and a few guys did not do so good fishing, now they want to head back to Big Stone/Traverse next year.
Good Luck with the MTT this year.
Jack.