Lewis and Clark walleye report 11-6-09 / 11-7-09

I finally had a couple of days to get up to Northeast Nebraska to chase walleye on Lewis and Clark Reservoir on the Missouri River. With weather forecasts of 70+ degrees and light winds how could a person sit at work or at home? I made the trip up on Friday morning and hit the water around 11:30. I started the day off trolling leadcore on steep breaks where I marked a lot of fish and bait. With the water temperature hovering around 50 degrees I started out running 2.0 mph and could not get a bite. I tried several different depths as I seemed to mark fish anywhere from 20 FOW to 40 FOW. I varied trolling speeds from 1.6 to 2.2 and was unable to hook up any fish.

With the beautiful weather there were close to 40 other boats on the water, most of which were vertical jigging. A few of the guys were catching an occasional fish but most said the bite had really shut off after a really good bite right at sun-up. I decided I had to try something a little different. I had just recently been to Pool 4 of the Mississippi River and spent some time there pulling 3-ways with original Rapala balsa stick baits. This was a much slower presentation but would still allow me to cover some water and hopefully up my odds at passing through some active fish. I used a 3 ounce dropper weight with an 18 inch lead and used a 36 inch leader to the stick bait. It took 88 feet of line out on 8.5 foot planer board rods and I was hovering the weight just above the bottom in 36 FOW at 1.0 mph. It sure didn’t take long to hook up with my first fish of the day, a dandy 21 inch walleye. I finished off the afternoon with this set up and kept changing baits until I figured out the size and colors they wanted. My big fish for the day was a healthy 24 inch walleye that completely inhaled a #11 vampire original floater.

On Saturday, my good friend Wade Keuhl made the drive up from Sioux City to spend the day fishing with me. We hit the water just after sun up and decided to stick with trolling 3 way setups. It sure didn’t take long to get our first fish in the boat, but struggled to get another fish in the boat for quite some time. Finally after changing up some baits and even trying some Husky Jerks we were able to get back on some fish. With the great weather a lot of anglers were starting to show up. Most of them were vertical jigging and seemed to be struggling to get into any numbers of fish. As the boats started to pile into our productive area it soon became too crowded for us to maneuver around all the boats that were drifting with drift socks. We tried some new areas where we were still marking a lot of fish but came up empty handed.

With our 3 way bite gone and nearly no wind Wade and I decided to switch things up and do a little vertical jigging. We drove around looking for some schools of fish away from the crowd of boat that was now probably 50 to 60 boats. It didn’t take long to spot a good school of fish in 34 FOW just at the bottom of a steep beak. We tied on semi stand-up jigs, Wade tried a BfishN Tackle Goldcracker ring worm tipped with a minnow and I tried just a plain minnow. It didn’t take Wade long to get crushed by a 21 inch tank of a saugeye. Minutes later Wade hooked into his new PB Nebraska walleye, a beautiful 27 inch tank that loved posing for a picture. This fish also stands as the biggest walleye caught out of my new, two week old Skeeter. Congrats Wade!!! I was still without a fish on my setup and after being the net man twice in a row I decided to throw on a Goldcracker ringie myself. That did the trick!! We each caught a few more fish and ended the day with some nice fish to take home for the frying pan.