Sherman Reservoir Walleye report Apr. 2010

I’ve been lucky enough to have spent 4 of my last 6 weekends at Sherman Reservoir chasing walleye for tournaments and on guide trips. The walleye bite at Sherman has been up and down much like this springs weather. Days that were good put lots of nice keeper sized fish in the boat as well as a handful of protected slot fish. Some of my off days however would have been better spent sleeping in.

Sherman’s notorious spring big fish bite has been a little slow this year. There are a few over 28 inch fish being caught but not like they have been in the last several years. I had the pleasure just this last Saturday of helping out a fellow angler on the water that landed his personal best walleye while fishing alone only yards from my boat. His name is Travis and we had a heck of a way of meeting each other. I was out for an afternoon on the water with my wife Jamie, and our friends Teaf and JR. We had been catching walleye fairly steady when we noticed the guy in the boat behind us was doing battle with one heck of a fish. Once the fish surfaced and he realized it was a big walleye his hoots and hollers began. I had everyone on my boat reel in as I wanted to see this big fish and offer assistance. Travis soon netted the fish and I asked if he needed help with getting some pictures taken. He said yes and I soon boarded his boat to give him a hand. He had “shaky legs” so bad that I had to grab the fish and quickly measure it. She measured 28 ½ inches and had a belly that looked like that of a March pre-spawn fish. We snapped a group of pictures and he wanted to get her released so another angler could have the same opportunity he had. Conrats on a great fish Travis! I hope we can fish together someday soon.

I’ve had success the last several weeks using two of my favorite tactics for boating eyes. Trolling lead core and live baiting with shiners, crawlers, and leeches. Both have been putting a fair amount of fish in the boat but I’ve found that it helps to try the other if one isn’t working. The fish in Sherman this year are as healthy as I’ve seen them in years at that lake. This is due to the large amount of shad in the lake. Nearly all of the fish that I have cleaned in the last month have had stomachs full of shad. This has also lead to the fast and furious bites being short periods only a couple times a day. My best advise for walleye on Sherman right now would be to fish several areas a couple of times each throughout the day. When one of your favorite areas decides to turn on you should be able to quickly put a few fish in the boat.

With the crazy spring weather the water temp has not been on it’s normal spring warm up. In the last 2 weeks the water temp actually dropped several degrees and have seemed to push walleye a little deeper. Just this last weekend all of the fish that were caught in my boat came from 22 feet of water down to 30 feet. Two weeks earlier all the fish in my boat came from 15-20 feet of water. I had a few guide trips on Sherman the last few weeks and we had a great time. So far everyone has had fish to take home and some great memories of some slot fish that make them want to learn more about Sherman. I hope to be back on the water soon. I’m actually packed and ready to hit the road to Lewis and Clark as soon as this report gets posted. I’ll be spending a couple of days prefishing for the NWA tournaments on Saturday and Sunday. Then after the tournaments I’ll be on another guide trip on Monday at Lewis and Clark as well.

A big thanks to clients who have joined me in the boat this last month. We’ve had some great times and I look forward to fishing with you all again.