Hoyer’s NWT winning deets, Live sonar probz, Dropshot saves day

Fish-head John Hoyer is gettin’ pretty dang good at hoisting up oversized checks…. This time he got ‘er done – again – at the biggest stage in walleye fishing: The National Walleye Tour Championship on Lake Erie out of Dunkirk, NY. Brought home the ‘dubyah’ with a 3-day bag of 102.33 lbs (15 fish) and landed a $129,469 payday! #ChaChing

If you’re wondering how he caught ’em, here’s the short answer:

> John Hoyer: “Trolling is boring….”

Lol! Okay now to dive in a bit deeper:

> 8 days before the championship commenced, Hoyer identified some intriguing vegetation and investigated on a whim. What he experienced instantly gave him flashbacks to the 2019 NWT Sault Ste. Marie event, where he took 2nd by ripping swimbaits through cabbage.

> This time around the vegetation was eelgrass, but otherwise the pattern was the same. Using a Berkley PowerBait The Champ Swimmer [the biggest 4.6″ size], Hoyer would cast into the eelgrass, snap the bait as hard as possible to clear the grass, and they’d bite it on the fall. His best colors were HD Bluegill and HD Yellow Perch.

> “…ripping it hard off the bottom about 6-ft and killing it…letting it freefall as fast as it possibly could, and they would absolutely inhale it. Every fish had it choked so I was able to get a good hookset and get them in the boat. I would use a 1/2-oz up to a 1-oz Fusion19 swimbait jighead depending on the current. With the heavier jighead, it falls even faster and they hit it even harder. That snapping action is the most fun way to catch a walleye – end of conversation. To see how fast they come and hit it on ActiveTarget is literally breathtaking. The only rod I used was a 7′ MH Fenwick World Class. That rod was rigged with 10-lb Fireline and a 15-lb Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon leader.”

> …prevailing current is what protected his areas, therefore allowing weed growth. While most pros were trolling in 70′, the weedbed depth was only 6-12′. …nearly all the walleyes had a golden color to them, making him believe they’re resident fish.

> “We found probably 18-20 weedbeds, but some were just in bays. The best spots were the classic Canadian rock/weed combos. Today it was weird…the current was raging. It was so fast it was pulling you against the wind…could see the fish sitting behind the weed clumps, using them as a break in the current. From there, it was a matter of dissecting the spot with ActiveTarget.”

> Hoyer described these weedbeds as a milk run with some up to 5 miles apart. Round trip, he would travel 80-100 miles each day.

> “It was a struggle early [on day3]. I started fishing around 8am, and I put my fifth fish in the livewell at 10:30, but that limit only weighed around 20 lbs. On our third spot, we caught a couple of 5-lbers to move us up some. We kept moving, and finally I hit a spot that I thought could produce maybe 2 nice walleyes. I got there, and I saw 4 fish on the graph and assumed they were rough fish. I pitched in there, and it was like hitting a stick of dynamite. I had an 8.5-lber just blow up on it. Then it just got crazy. At the very end of the day I got bit 10x on my last 15 casts. I literally left them biting at the biggest tournament of the year. I was 40 miles from takeoff with 30 lbs. It was time to just roll in.”

It’s never fun leaving biting fish…but imagine when those fish are THIS caliber:

> “I’m still in the moment where it hasn’t set in. I do think this one means more than ’19 because of how we did it. It was a dream come true to win it this way…my favorite way to fish. To have those calm, fishable conditions for 3 days is just unbelievable. As a caster, you envision something like this happening, but so many things have to line up.”

> Walleye fans might remember Keith Kavajecz winning the 2014 NWT event on Lake Michigan’s Bays de Noc…the first major tournament won via casting and Great Lakes fishing was forever changed. This event could be a similar game-changer on Lake Erie.

I heard that Hoyer was the only one out of the field that was casting instead of trolling – just incredible. BIG congrats, buddy! 👏👏👏

Btw…for being such a detailed and organized dude, you should see how cluttered the inside of Hoyer’s truck is (lol):

Dewey’s 2nd-place finish at the Lake Erie event pushed him over the edge in the Angler of the Year race – meaning he was the most consistently good angler through every National Walleye Tour event in 2022. Way to put it together the ENTIRE season dude!

Get this: In the last 3 NWT events, Dewey has finished 2nd, 1st and 2nd. Earlier this month, he also won the National Team Championship on Lake Oahe. 🔥 #EnFuego

Some details below from this NWT Insider Report on Dewey’s 2nd-place finish:

> While Hoyer uncovered the shallow weed pattern, Hjelm helped expand it.

> “After John discovered this, we built on it to where we had about 8 spots. We didn’t exactly know the true potential, but we knew it had some good ones. Because it was John’s deal, I went and trolled the first day. On day 1, he got all that weight from only 1 spot. So from then on, I joined. I took half, and he took half. We just rotated through the spots. It was a big enough area where we never saw each other. In fact, I never saw another boat.”

> Hjelm would cast the larger 4.6″ Champ Swimmer in HD Bluegill while his co-angler would throw the smaller 3.8-incher in HD Yellow Perch.

> “…finding the edges with SideScan…we’d drop waypoints and pick our way through. Rocks weren’t a big deal. It was more a matter of finding the right weedbeds. There was bait, probably shiners or little perch, and they would use those weeds for cover.”

> Hjelm would rip the swimbait and then let it completely free fall. Half the time they’d hit it on the fall, and half the time they’d hit it on the rip.

> “You’re ripping it through the grass, and it’s cleaning your bait off too. At times, I would change my cadence as I could see them chase on my ActiveTarget. This might be my new favorite way to fish. It was an unbelievably fun tournament.”

> For winning AOY, Hjelm receives paid entry into each of the 4 qualifying events of the 2023 season. His 2nd-place championship finish earned him an upgraded boat package, for being a part of the Ranger Cup program, Ranger 620FS with a 250-horsepower Mercury outboard, plus $15,000 cash and $2,460 in Anglers Advantage money for a total payout of $107,455.

> “The money and the boat packages, that stuff all comes and goes. It’s about the trophies that will forever sit in my house for everyone to see. Every time I look at those, I’ll have the memories of this tournament and this year. That means more than anything to me.”

Simply amazing, man! 🤯 WHAT. A. YEAR.

We scratched up 5 “eater” size walleyes for 3rd place in our local walleye league last night. They would not bite anything…until I plopped a dropshot right in their faces. 🎯

Great way to make specific casts at structure or fish, and work thru them fast, yet be able to keep the bait right in the strike zone the whole time:

My go-to dropshot hook (whether I’m using plastics, little sucker minnows, or ‘crawlers) is a #2 VMC Finesse Neko Hook:

That’s the “what” now here’s the “why….” 👀

> By far my best hook-up percentage with a dropshot = these hooks with a “reeling” hookset (versus swinging on the fish).

> The longer shank gets the bait a little further from the line. Also allows you to nose hook baits or thread them on depending on your bait and style of fishing.

> Has an epoxy resin that closes the hook eye…prevents thin diameter line from slipping thru. If you’ve ever had it happen once, you never want it to again.

> That thick, fluorocarbon keeper is just enough something to help keep a ‘crawler up on the shank. Of course works great when threading on plastics, too.

That #2 size is the most popular for dropshotting bass-heads too, so it likes to be sold-out. Saw FishUSA has maybe a half dozen packages in stock…for now….

Out of Navajo Lake recently. I’ve seen a few ’round here with a mild case of that teal or turquoise-like color in their mouths…but these ones are on a whole nother level:

Sorta looks like me after I steal every blue M&M out of my daughter’s bag. 😅

Can’t believe we’re on Episode 15 already – big thx to our friends at Sea Foam for making this fun video series possible! Hope you enjoy:

All of these “Top 5” videos run between-ish 4 to 7 minutes so you can quickly keep up with what’s going on in the fishing world, and get a little chuckle in the meantime. If you wanna catch up on episodes, I’ve put them all in a single YouTube playlist here. 🍿👊

1. Friendly reminder the sun is not our friend.

Skin cancer is real, and I needed this reminder from bass pro Josh Douglas. Warning: There’s some sensitive photos in the link of where he got the “C” cut out. 🙏 Glad you caught it early, brotha!

2. MN: What happens to the fish after the State Fair is over?

> The fish have all been swimming together for weeks and swapping potential pathogens and whatnot. So, they can’t ever return to the wild.

> “[Afterwards] we put them all into our pond, close to our [DNR] office, and they kind of go to their little retirement community until it’s show time next year.”

> A lot of them [make an annual trip to the State Fair]. But for some it is a one-way trip. …if you hang around at night and hear lots of splashing – well, let’s just say it’s a fish-eat-fish kind of situation there outside the DNR building, and some of them fall on the prey side of the predator-prey equation.

> But some of these fish have been at the fair longer than you or I.

> “A lot of the bigger fish, especially the sturgeon, I think that has been in our pond…since the late ’80s. They’re a long-lived fish. They can live up to over 100-yrs-old….”

3. MN: Lake Minnetonka getting a speed limit in 2023.

Requires boats to keep a speed of 5mph or less when 300′ from the shoreline.

Which is exactly 2 long casts with Berkley NanoFil line lol.

4. MN: Kevin and Eric McQuoid speaking at the TCWU meeting tomorrow.

TCWU = Twin Cities Walleyes Unlimited.

5. New Simms fall collection out.

Technical + lifestyle = 😍🔥🔥🔥

6. ND: 2022 Yar-Craft Owners Invitational is coming up.

On Lake Sakakawea out of Garrison. Open to all Yar-Craft Owners:

> “The 2022 Yar-Craft Boats owners invitational is hosted by North Country Marine and Motorsports out of Garrison ND on beautiful Lake Sakakawea on Sept 24 this year. Teams of 2 or 3 people with at least one person being a current Yar-Craft boat owner will ‘brave the wave’ on the 2nd largest manmade lake in the US for a basket of beautiful Lake Sakakawea gold and a chance at being the named the best of the best! Host dealer North Country Marine would love to have you involved in this awesome tournament! Call 701-463-BOAT (2628) to register today!”

7. Lowe launches new 2023 SF Pontoon Series.

8. Northland Tackle is having a Labor Day Sale.

20% off site wide.

9. FishUSA has Berkley Hit Sticks on sale.

Have ’em buy 1 get 1 free for today only. No code, just add 2 to your cart to get the deal.

10. WI DNR investigating fish kill in Isabelle Creek.

> DNR staff have observed over 600 dead trout and a variety of dead forage fish species….

***But worth it…. 😂

Unless you’re Steven Rutz, who sniped the handlebars off a kid’s Razor Kick Scooter and made a mount that rotates, extends and folds down for transport LOL. Yes, this is real life:

GREAT snap of Rapala’s Dan “DQ” Quinn getting his broomtail on with a Shadow Rap Deep – fall is in the air! 🙌

National Professional Anglers Assoc. 

MN-FISH