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Thought we'd better give Dylan another call to get the scoop on how he's catching his pets! š
Little different derby this time being a couple weeks later in the spring, so here's Dylan on how he adjusted to get the win. š
> "The big difference was we were a lot farther along in the spawn.
> "When we were there for the NWT, we were fishing probably like 80%+ pre-spawn walleyes. This tournament, we were fishing for 20-30% of the pre-spawn walleyes left.
> "It was a really big difference. Pre-spawners really changed up plans, and we really tried to find water where there was the most amount of pre-spawners. You just try to look for the biggest fish and just hope that one of them really big ones was pre-spawn, which we did get a couple of them.
> "I think we had 4 that were over 30", from 30-31.5", and we had one that was just a monster pre-spawner that was 28-incher.ā
Since those fish were a little further on in the spawn, what adjustments did you make to locate more quality fish?
> "Once we got there and figured out that the spawn was way farther along than what I was hoping for, I started thinking about how the spawn migration works. On Lake Erie, as soon as those fish dump their eggs, they start working their way back east.
> "The biggest fish are usually on the leading edge of that, and they're usually the ones that are the farthest east.
> "So we just started working our way as far east as we could go [within a 30-mile boundary either side of Huron, OH], then started working our way back and trying to find where there were pods of bigger fish. There really weren't a ton of them, just the right ones."
How did the area makeup of this tournament compare to the NWT?
> "At the NWT, we were fishing around the reef complexes...where a lot of the spawning takes place. We basically stayed around that monster reef complex ā The Cans.
> "For this one, it was switching gears and thinking of the migration pattern...figuring out what depth they're in.
> "If you follow the shoreline out from The Cans all the way to Lorain, you can think of that as just a breakline that goes the whole way from the islands over to Lorain and keeps going along the whole coast of Lake Erie. That's one of the biggest migrating routes across there.
> "From there, you just figure out what depth they're in and start going along down the shoreline. For us, the deal was around 30 feet."
I assume there weren't any Z-Man Jerk ShadZ involved in any of that, was there?
> "No, never. š¤£
> "Actually, that was the only thing I threw for this one. I did not catch a single walleye on a nightcrawler for the whole tournament.
> "I did have them in the boat, but honestly the only time I would grab them was when a fish would shy away or I would spook a fish. I didn't spend too much time with crawlers. The Jerk ShadZ were just the deal for me."
How were you targeting the fish when you found the right ones?
> "We weren't on a lot of fish by any means. We weren't fishing a big school. It was more of just sorting through little ones, and really paying attention to what the big ones were and going after those.
> "We'd go along, mark 'em with 2D [traditional sonar]. When I'd see a small pod of fish, I'd drop off plane, throw the trolling motor down and go through that school of fish at 1-1.5 mph.
> "I did go a lot slower for this one just to make sure I didn't roll up on top of big fish.ā
When Dylan says he "came off plane", a big part of his strategy is to use a transom mounted Garmin GT15 transducer to his Garmin ECHOMAP at the console for scanning 2D...going āround 25 mph, but all the way up to 35 mph.
> "I do that pretty much everywhere. It is specific to some lakes to some degree, but pretty much any lake I'm fishing, high-speed 2D graphing is definitely essential."
Any adjustments you had to make with your bait in this derb?
> "A 3/8-oz VMC Neon Moon Eye was the go-to in calmer water, but for the tournament I ended up going to a 3/4-oz VMC RedLine Series Tungsten Swimbait Jighead ā the current was ripping and a lot of the fish were deeper, like 25'. I had to get down to them fast."
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