Today’s Top 5
Bigguns of the week!
Randy Gaines has been puttin’ his clients on some Lake Erie studs! They’ve been pulling Off Shore Tackle Planer Boards and cranks near Port Clinton, OH while looking for the cleanest water they can find:
Mick Broughton cracked this slobby 15-lber [!] on a Domka custom-painted Bandit trolled 0.9 to 1.2 mph. Said it “stayed down the whole way in…even at 2′ on the Okuma Cold Water Low-Profile Line Counter it was still straight down!” Whoa:
Travis DeWitt caught this big gal slipping the current with a BFishn Tackle Pulse-R on the Rainy River, MN. She weighed 11-07 and measured 30″. #Stout
Nolan Koepp’s boat landed an 11.11, 12.10 and 12.60 while trolling Viper Custom Husky Jerks and jigging Viper Custom Rippin’ Raps. That 11.11-lber musta been the ultimate good-luck charm:
David Shmyr Jr. caught and released this 33-lb 4-oz ice melon on a Bagley Rattlin’ B. That pike probably wears the same size jeans as you man…holy smokes:
How Tom Brunz targets spring saugers.
Why saugers? Because when the walleye bite gets tough in the spring, saugers will still swim up and punch a bait right in the face! The full Tom Brunz tip is here on TargetWalleye.com, but there’s a few excerpts below. Guy knows his stuff. #Hardware
> While you’ll find spring walleyes away from the current, you’ll find saugers right in the current a majority of the time. Tailrace areas, feeder-creek inlets and deep eddies are excellent spots.
> Look for them deeper, but close to where you find walleyes. During the spring you’ll find walleyes hugging the shorelines in shallow water — look for saugers in deeper pools adjacent to these areas.
> Saugers are a lot less picky than walleyes when it comes to bottom composition. In the spring you’ll find them in rock, gravel and sand, but a lot of times you’ll want to locate those part-sand, part-silt-or-mud bottoms with current. Spawning areas typically involve some kind of grass too.
> The only problem with the classic 3-way rig is that the first stickbait loses action when another stickbait and leader is attached to the back. That’s why I like to incorporate a second 3-way swivel and run two separate stickbait leaders. It preserves the action of both baits and invariably leads to more boated fish.
New Rapala lure leaked!!
They weren’t going to release it until ICAST, the annual fishing tackle trade show, but those noisy media people got to diggin’ and scratched up some info early.
Word is it’s going to be called the “Scatter Ball Rap,” and catches pot-bellied behemoths like this one that bounced into Paul Delaney’s boat. #SwallowedIt
They’ve got a special March Madness edition color that comes with VMC Glow Resin Trebles straight outta the package:
Side note – if you ever get invited to join a March Madness pool or bracket with the crew over at Rapala…don’t. They win every year:
Are you feeling walleye deprived?
Take advantage of the down time to hang out with the fam and [finally] clean that garage of yours out lol.
Caught outta Kinkaid and weighed 4 lbs 8.8 oz. Tough to even imagine a crappie that’s 18.75″ long with a 16″ girth. Check the full story here.
2. MN: Perry Good inducted to Fishing Hall of Fame.
Congrats man! Much deserved.
> Current bumped up to 1.3 mph and the water clarity was 12″ to 18″ as of yesterday afternoon. The bite up river slowed with the dip in clarity, which was 40″ when the river was kicking out 75- to 100-fish days the couple days prior.
> Most of our fish were caught working the edges of holes, depressions and sand flats in 16′ to 18′, but a couple bigger bites also came from up in 7′ to 10′ while pitching plastics to the first main shoreline break.
> BFishn Tackle AuthentX Moxis and Pulse-R Paddletails on 1/4-oz jigs worked best. Sounds light, but it was the perfect size to keep the jig ticking bottom as it moved downstream — slightly quicker than the boat — while we slipped the current at about 1.0 mph.
> Lake fish are starting to show up, joining the river dwellers that followed the shiners in this fall and never left.
> As of now it sounds like heading west to the mouth and anchoring with heavier jigs [1/2-oz to 3/4-oz] is where it’s at, but we have a tough time sitting still and would rather bass fish for walleyes….
4. NE: DNR to collect 78 mil walleye eggs…
…on Sherman Reservoir, Merritt Reservoir and Lake McConaughy. #busy
5. ME: Ice fishing season…extended?
> Dep. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife: “This year with ice hanging around a lot longer we’re going to extend the ice fishing season so people can fish.”
Pushed back to April 16, must be rough!
6. NAIFC: Top 3 teams at the championship…
…ALL use Aqua-Vu Underwater Cameras. That’s no cowinky-dink — gitcha one!
7. IONS not just for ice feeshin’.
Imagine if a buddy borrowed yours to do this:
Think outside the box beaver lodge.
8. ID: Guy turning carp into fertilizer.
Makes sense….
9. Didja enter our Okuma giveaway yet?
Chance to win a pile of Avenger Baitfeeder reels! Just enter your email addy, then share the link you get for more chances to win. Good luck!
Headline of the Day
Tip of the Day
Chip Leer: Early-season river walleyes.
> My favorite scenarios are rivers that flow into larger bodies of water, such as the Rainy River at Lake of the Woods or Detroit River at western Lake Erie. Main lake walleyes will gather at the river mouth in late winter — moving upstream toward spawning areas as the ice recedes.
> I typically start my search at the river mouth and work my way upstream, checking channel edges and a variety of current breaks. Main-channel holes attract waves of migrating fish and often “recharge” several times during a day of fishing. Don’t overlook anything that blocks the current or offers winter-weary walleyes a chance to rest and feed.
> Tip jigs with a 3″ to 5″ scented soft-plastic trailer, which gives walleyes a target in the turbid, relatively dark waters common in spring river fishing. Northland’s Impulse Paddle Minnows, Ringworms, Smelt Minnows and even old-school creature designs will all trigger bites.
Quote of the Day
Don’t worry about trying to be sponsored or getting sponsored. Those will all happen, those will all come in due time. The best thing you can do is fish every day.
– Advice from a pro walleye angler to an aspirin’ pro. Dang straight!
Today’s ‘Eye Candy
Brookies are trouta control….
