McQuoid went hawg hunting, Which Rap when, Line spooling hacks

I mentioned in Friday’s TW that Eric McQuoid was heading out on day 3 sitting in 1st place after throwing up a massive 23.72-lb bag on day 2. Remember in MN that weight only includes 2 fish > 20″ for the 2-person team, so they basically had the absolute perfect bag:

Well, he backed it up again (and again)! Brought in another 19.21-lb sack pushing his 3-day total to 58.55 lbs = besting 2nd place by a whopping 13.67-lb margin 🤯.

What’s all that mean? Dude brought home a prize package worth $121,535 [!!!] and of course ultimate bragging rights in ending his rookie NWT campaign with a massive bang. Congrats man! Know that’s one proud papa McQuoid:

Lot of folks were catching their fish up shallow, but Eric said he couldn’t get dialed on that program and instead slid out deeper with his go-to confidence bait: an Acme Hyper-Rattle.

Few details from the National Walleye Tour Insider Report:

> Eric: “It was a 1-2 punch for me this week. #1 was using the Garmin LiveScope to find them. #2 was the Hyper-Rattle. One of my buddies at Bemidji State got me on to it. Ever since, it’s been my go-to bait. My practice was terrible [only caught 7-8 walleyes total] so I just went back to what I had confidence in, and it’s that bait.”

Random thought of the day:

If you follow the bass tourney scene, you know that Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Flat Worms have been all the rage. Winning tons of $$$ and constantly sold-out everywhere. The Hyper-Rattle is sorta like the Flat Worm of the walleye world. They catch the snot out of fish but are soooo hard to find in stock (specifically the biggest size) ‘cuz everyone snipes ’em up.

Okay, now back to how he caught ’em…

> McQuoid used the bigger 30 gram Hyper-Rattle, and he said his preferred color was glow perch. All but 1 of his 15 weigh fish came on the Hyper-Rattle, the lone outlier coming from his co-angler, who was rigging chubs.

Here’s a look at the bait/color:

And he was fishing it in a non-traditional way that even a lot of diehards don’t try:

> Fishing in 8-16′, McQuoid would identify the fish on his LiveScope, then position the bait 5′ above their head. 👀

> “You rip it once and then catch it. Then you rip it again and watch their reaction. Sometimes I would let it fall all the way to the bottom just to get their attention. There were times they would chase it, but not grab it.”

> While his slot fish were mostly suspended, all but 1 of his overs came near the bottom.

> “My biggest fish of the tournament looked like a giant rock on the bottom. I probably made 20 casts before she eventually bit.”

> “I want to credit my dad. I’m a rookie on the NWT, but I’ve been fishing tournaments with my father since I was 8 [yrs old]. I’ve learned a lot – especially how to stay calm and how to fish what your confidence is.

> “It hasn’t sunk in it. It’s just so amazing it’s hard to find the words for it. I couldn’t have written a better script for my rookie season. I’m never going to forget this.”

Love it, dude! 🔥 Definitely earned it.

My bud Jason Rylander and I pulled off the ‘dubya’ in the Walleye Alliance Fall Classic on Pelican Lake (Breezy Point, MN) over the weekend. Our 6-fish bag was anchored by a 29″ kicker that was also big fish of the derby at 6.76 lbs:

Funny enough, I actually tried to convince Jason that we shouldn’t fish this tourney ‘cuz I skunked on the lake the week prior in our local walleye league, and neither of us were going to have time to get out their pre-fishing before the tourney. Glad Jason’s super convincing. 🤣

This derby had a 6-fish limit with only 1 fish allowed > 20″. So we went into it with two separate game plans: A shallow-water jig pitching deal for fish under 20″, then pulling rigs with big chubs on deep humps for an “over.” Gotta love when a plan works out because they sure never seem too!

We caught the majority of our “unders” right away in the morning pitching 1/8-oz VMC Hard Ball Jigs tipped with chubs. Believe that new jig will be coming out in a few months. Basically a traditional roundball jighead, but I really like that it has a stout VMC hook with plenty of gap = perfect for pitching chubs and suckers. Btw they don’t come with all these tooth marks haha:

It’s hard to find a light 1/8-oz jig that has enough hook gap to pitch those bigger minnows and not miss fish. Same goes for finding one that doesn’t bend out when using braid. But the Hard Ball did great in both those departments so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some more.

We found those big pods of “unders” sitting right on the weedline in 14-15′ on the edge of a large flat before it dipped into deep water. Looked like this quick snap I took of my Humminbird Side Imaging while idling by. I turned the pic on it’s side so it fit in the email better…but it was scanning out 75′ to the left of the boat. All the small black blotches are sonar shadows from fish right where the weeds start to taper off:

Ended up catching probably 20+ fish out of that school before the sun poked out and they completely shut off. Lots of smaller 12-13″ fish, but a few of those better “unders” were mixed in. Had something along the lines of a 19″, 18.5″, 18″, 17.5″ then a runt 14″ for our bag that we couldn’t get rid of. So now it was time to go 🐷 hunting for our 1 fish over 20″.

Burned up about 3/4 tank of gas running ALL over the lake graphing before finally cracking the BIG one. Graphed a huge blob on my Humminbird Down Imaging in 29′ while scanning a very small hump surrounded by deep water – dropped a waypoint on it and circled back – a couple minutes later I watched her eat a 5″ creek chub on LiveScope and the fight was on.

There were 5 or 6 fish on my LiveScope at the same time. When that big one bit the chub, all the other fish instantly scattered. Had me thinking it was maybe a giant pike at first, but apparently the other fish just wanted to get out of mamas way lol.

Several powerful runs had me soooo thankful I was running 8-lb Sufix Advance Mono = don’t tear as many hooks out as you do with braid. I’ve actually switched all of my chubbing rods over to it now. And those VMC TechSet Live Bait hooks are legit. The #2s are a great all-around size for schmedium chubs up to say 5″. Any bigger than that and I would bump up to a #1 or #1/0 for the big dogs.

Realized just how big the fish was when the net hit the floor of the boat. She was super old and gnarly. Had some kind of moss-looking fungus growing on a couple spots, bunch of old scars all over, lots of character. We immediately pulled up the trolling motor and headed straight to the weigh station early. She was kicking super hard the whole time, but unfortunately just didn’t want to swim off, and ended up not making it after quite some time spent trying to get her to go.

Instead of cutting her up, I decided I’m going to have a skin mount made to hang on the wall next to the plaque. It’s not the longest or heaviest walleye I’ve ever caught…but to have it happen on “game day” with my good-est buddy Jason in the boat, she’s absolutely one I’ll never forget. 👊

Bass-head Andy Nitchals posted this pic of the king of all derps! Caught outta MN’s Gull Lake. I’m still trying to imagine that thing eating a bait AND getting a hook in it. 🧐🤣

All 3 of these hardbaits do a killer job of pulling walleyes thru the ice, but knowing which to tie on when will for sure help you to catch more (and bigger!) fish!

In the meantime, I hope you’re still able to sneak out for a bunch of awesome fall fishing! She’s just getting good…. 👊 Thx much for watching!

The top honors at the annual Fish Decoy Carving World Championship went to Wallace Decoys and his stunning tiger trout decoy. 🤯 Man, I’d be scared to even hold it:

> Wallace Decoys: “My tiger trout worker decoy won the GLFDA World Championship this year – the top honor I’ve been after since starting to compete at this show 7 yrs ago. This show has always been a highlight of the year for me as it’s a bunch of fun with great friends that share the same passion for carving and decoys as I do.

> “Big thanks to Al Reeg and everyone who helps put this show on, the friends that came to hang out this weekend and for every carver who I have competed against – you have pushed me to become a more skilled craftsman every year.”

Congrats man! Absolutely incredible stuff and I 10/10 recommend scrolling thru his Facebook page to see some of his other pieces. I’m suddenly having the strong urge to have him commission a burbot decoy…. 🤔💡

Back with the regular “News” section on Friday!

Ready or not, the iceman cometh! 🥶 We’re gonna start sprinkling more and more ice nuggets in these emails going forward.

I asked Al Lindner if he was excited about fishin’ the hardwater and he said:

Lol sorry had to, man!

Some quick line-spooling hacks!

It’s almost time to get those “fairy wands” ready to rip. One challenge of using smaller ice spools is they cause more line twist or coiling – ain’t nobody got time for that!

Did you know spooling in a bowl of warm water can help keep line WAY more manageable? No joke. That and a few other bonus tips in this short 4-min vid from a few years back, but the tricks still apply:

Fall is (finally) in the air, and @bigwaterfishing couldn’t be happier to get his 🐷 on:

National Professional Anglers Assoc. 

MN-FISH