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If you’re getting Target Walleye for the first time, a friend probably signed you up!
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New ID state-record perch iced!
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Yup, this is real life! 🤯 Adam Mann crushed the ID state-record perch outta Lake Cascade to the tune of 3.22 lbs (went 16.25″ long with a 15.5″ girth). You have got to see this thing’s belly: |
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Huge, huge, HUGE congrats dude! I’m working on tracking down some more bait/technique info and will follow-up if I can get my hands on any….
The previous ID state-record perch also came outta Cascade and was a 2.96-lber (15.63″ long x 13.25″ girth) caught by Skye Coulter on 2/26/2016:
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And before that it was a 2-lb 11.68-oz beauty hauled in by Tia Wiese in 2014, a fish that in 2015 was confirmed as a new world record for tip-up ice fishing:
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Yup, Cascade is still on my fishing bucket-list. 🎯
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Daytime burbot with UNDERWATER footage!
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The daytime burbot (aka eelpout) bite is in full force RIGHT NOW. Just can’t get enough of it, so I had to sneak out for a couple “extended lunch breaks” to get some of those heavy hooksets in – both before and after my new lucky burbot facial hair that I refuse to shave off until after this virtual “Burbot Bash” catch-and-release derby is done! 🤣 |
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All of my “weigh fish” so far have come on 1-oz Big Nasty Tackle Pout Pounder Jigs and 3/8-oz VMC Hot Skirt Glow Jigs tipped with minners. The competition is crazy stiff! I’m currently sitting in 8th place with 153.25″ for 5 burbs. #TargetBurbot
Have never really measured ‘pout before, so wasn’t sure what to expect…but never would’ve thought it’d take over a 30″ average just to barely be sneaking into the top 10 (for now). 🤯 Some UNREAL fish being put up across the state of MN!
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The virtual derby goes until this Sunday. Not sure if I’ll be able to sneak out again between now and then, but if not = it’s been an incredible and straight-up addicting run. I know some dudes who have hit the ice every single day since the tourney started, and some that even slept on the ice for the last 2 weeks straight. Burbot-chasers are for sure a different kind of folk.
Last year at this same time, I had one of the craziest days of ice fishing I’ve ever had…and it was all for the love of burbot! It’s hard to even put it into words how special the daytime burbot bite is, so I’ll just have to let the underwater footage do most of the talking:
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Get out after ’em while the bite is HOT! Not a better time of year to scout out new spots that you can add to your rotation next year…’cuz earlier in the season the bite windows can be soooo tight you almost have to dedicate your whole evening to trying one area, and wait for them to roll through. Right now you can hop around – and if you don’t see fish on the graph or camera within 10 or 15 minutes = it’s not happening there.
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Lake of the Woods is a different world.
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Just got back from a few days up at Lake of the Woods. We caught a little bit of everything: walleyes, saugers, crappies, tullibees, northern, and even burbot…which is what we were specifically targeting.
Didn’t get the state record like we were shooting for (lol) but we did catch a few burbot on each spot, which is SO rewarding when you catch an oddball species like that on purpose. Even kept a couple smaller one’s for a meal – if you come across where our Yetti was parked, here’s the only proof we left:
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We went outta Arnesen’s Rocky Point Resort and can’t thank them enough for all of their help! And it’s sorta funny how we put hundreds of miles on the sleds – zipping all the way up to the NW Angle and whatnot – yet the best burbot fishing we had was all within just 1 or 2 miles of the resort hahaha. Reminds me of fishing in the summer and how no one ever seems to hit spots close to the access/launch ‘cuz “the grass is always greener” wherever you’re not. 🤷♂️
First thing I noticed when we landed at the resort was that everyone – everywhere – had tracks. Of course on side-by-sides, trucks and SUVs…even tracked-out school buses rolling around! Check out the front-row parking while looking out from Arnesen’s at lunchtime:
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Wild!
The resort owner had homemade/welded skis he slapped on AnglingBuzz’s tandem-axle 21′ Yetti Angler Edition and he was able to slide that bad boy anywhere he wanted, plowed road or not. Pretty freakin’ cool!
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Can’t wait to get back up there for round 2 of our #BoutWithaPout 🤣 but in the meantime, the Rainy River has my attention. Heard rumors that folks are already sneaking little boats in off the shore-ice?!
Speaking of the Rainy River…
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The heaviest walleye caught outta my boat…
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…the last couple years was caught by (no surprise) my wife Amanda during a quick day-trip up to the Rainy River on 4/4/19.
I was hiding/working in my office one day when my wife came in and said we needed to talk…. 😳 My reaction was something like this only with a lot less hair:
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Lol!
Said she was sick of seeing all the big-fish pics pouring in from the Rainy River and wanted to sneak up there to get one of her own.
Luckily I had (finally) just switched to a cell provider (rhymes with “Horizon”) that actually has usable service outside the city limits.
After cramming in 4-ish more hours of work from the car – thanks to my wife driving! – we made it to the Frontier access. Hit our first traffic jam…but zero complaints about this kind of morning commute:
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And leave it to my wife to stick the fattest 29-incher I’ve ever seen. #perky
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She stuck that behemoth pitching a 1/4-oz VMC Neon Moon Eye Jig paired with a Juice Baits 3.8 HD Swimmer (green perch) in just 6-7′. Water temps were just 34 degrees, so sloooowly dragging the bait along bottom was the key for us until things warmed up later in the afternoon.
Amanda was nice enough to let my buddy Christian Hoffman and I stick a few slaunches of our own during thst 50-ish fish day. All released to get even more bigger-er:
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That was one of those trips where ya spend more time behind the windshield than actually fishing, but no doubt it was worth it!
Was so bummed we couldn’t get up there last spring with all the covid-related schtuff going on. Really hoping to make up for it this year! And this time I have a windshield boat (Lund 2025 Impact) so I’m almost hoping for nasty weather…almost.
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They say a picture is worth 1,000 words…
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…so here’s exactly what it feels like to ice the pike of the lifetime:
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Mike Olson ^ and his team at Fish Addictions TV have been talking all season about getting out to chase GIANT hardwater pike. They were supposed to head over to MT’s Fort Peck, but the rapidly-changing ice conditions forced ’em to turn the truck around and head north to Lake of the Woods to fish with Ross Swenson (Big North Guide Service). By the time they had set their house down on the lake, Mike had iced his first trophy pike, and they knew they were about to witness something magical….
More than 15 true trophy-class pike later, they definitely got in on the bite of a lifetime:
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1. ND: Zeebz found in moss balls at pet stores?!
> Zebra mussels were recently found in moss balls at some pet stores in ND and several other states. The ND Game and Fish Dept. is urging customers who recently purchased moss balls to properly dispose of them by placing in a bag, freezing solid and discarding into the trash. It’s important to not put moss balls down the toilet or drain.
> ND pet stores that received the contaminated shipment have been notified and have removed the moss balls from shelves
And not just a ND thing…sounds like they’ve shown up in 21 other states already, too.
2. MN: Heaviest ‘gill in UPL history caught.
Travis Kratcha’s 0.965-lb bull from the Green Lake UPL (Ultimate Panfish League) is the stoutest sunfish ever weighed-in:
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Also huge props to Stuart Manning and Sean Albiston for throwing up a whopping 14.135 lbs on the scale (new all-time weight leader) for their 8 crappies and 7 sunfish.
3. CAN: Billionaire Stan Kroenke wins fight to…
…kill public access to Stoney and Minnie lakes. Guess it’s been a decade-long legal battle in Canada to keep the public from 2 lakes that can only be reached through his property. I mean if it’s his property, it’s his property 🤷♂️. Nothing a float plane can’t fix tho hahaha.
4. Berkley and Merc re-up as AIM sponsors.
Awesome to see these big companies supporting catch-and-release walleye fishing.
5. New Garmin bottom hardness imagery.
Don’t have it for a ton of lakes yet but looks super cool:
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“I called my wife and told her I think I just caught the state record and she didn’t believe me.”
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– That’s Robbie Dockter talking, who broke a 55-yr-old MT record when he caught this 32.43 lb brown trout (37″ long x 28.5″ girth) on the Marias River. Was using a Kastmaster with an ultralight rod and 4-lb test! 15-min fight and it was a done deal: |
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Even cooler is he was fishing with his daughter! Congrats on the special memory!!
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Love this beauty shot from John Hoyer of a big ol’ Manitoba #greenback that scarfed a Berkley Snap Jig – those bigger 1/2- and 3/4-oz sizes are sleepers on the ice: |
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Hoyer said he paired a 1/2-oz Snap Jig with a 4″ Gulp! Nemesis, and that it still had enough momentum to swing the bait as far outside the cone as a big flutter spoon. Would do 3 big slack-line snaps then shake the bait down by bottom and they’d crush it. |
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Sign up another fish-head!
If you’re forwarding Target Walleye to a friend who loves to walleye-fish or want your fishing buddies to get these emails, just send us their email addresses and we’ll take care of it! (We won’t sell the addresses, use them for spam, etc.)
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Friends of Target Walleye
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Who is Target Walleye
Target Walleye – walleye during open water and all species during hardwater – is brought to you by Al Lindner, Jim Kalkofen, Jay Kumar, Brett McComas and other diehard fish-heads like you!
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Brett McComas is the main man for Target Walleye He was discovered in Brainerd, MN after years of wondering how in the heck people break into the fishing biz. He’s in it now, but still can’t answer that question…. Brett is one of those guys who majored in marketing, only because there was no such thing as a “fishing degree” at the time…. Get him at brett@targetwalleye.com
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