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Apologies that today’s TW is coming at you later than ‘the yoozsh’ but we were wrapping up some behind the scenes details on a fun, virtual walleye derby we’re hosting! More on that in Top Item #1 down below....
I’ve also been on the water chasing walleyes too much this week  to give ‘em a little camera time. Will have a ton of new videos coming your way soon-ish. Please consider this next pic my doctor’s note excusing the tardiness lol:
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That 27-incher (and a bunch of her friends) came up and CRUSHED my Rapala PXR Mavrik 110 Jerkbait in the "metallic yellow perch" color – such a fun bite!
Alright, now let’s get after it....
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Target Walleye is hosting a virtual walleye tournament!
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We’re hosting several virtual walleye derbies (catch-photo-release) thru the FishDonkey app this summer! The first month-long “Target Walleye Summer Shootout” will be kicking off TOMORROW, June 1 (followed up by July and August tourneys). You fish whenever is convenient for you, on any public waters, for a shot at a pile of prizes!
Prizes will be awarded each month for the largest walleye in each region, the biggest 3-fish stringer, and random-draw prizes too in case you only catch small ones. 
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There’s 5 different regions, including Canada, where folks can compete with monthly leaderboards for June, July, and Aug:
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Entry is $20 per tournament. And there will be an optional $20 side pot for the biggest walleye caught using a Berkley bait. 
Register today by searching for “The Target Walleye Summer Shootout” in the FishDonkey app. You’re going to be out fishing at some point during the month of June anyway, so might as well upload some of those catches into your Digital Livewell for a chance at prizes and glory! 
Btw if you’re seeing this after June 1, you can still sign up to fish the TW derby, you’ll just have to wait 24 hours after registering until you can start submitting fish.
If you’ve never fished in a virtual tournament thru the FishDonkey app before, it can feel a little intimidating to sign up for the first time.
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I felt the same way about doing one for the first time, but I’m telling you once you give it a shot, it’s an absolute blast!
The most important thing: Have fun! That’s what this is all about.  More details and info soon.
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Why you should ALWAYS wear sunglasses while fishing 
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Important reminder, from my buddy Jarrid Houston, that fishing accidents can happen fast. Here's his recent horror story:
> Jarrid: I was dislodging a snag for a customer on a trip. The 1/8-oz jig got caught in a log, and I pulled on the 8-lb monofilament. As the line was stretched to the max tension, the jig popped off and sling-shotted with rapid acceleration from 12 feet and hit me in my left eye.
> I almost always have my Costas sunglasses on, but for whatever fluke reason I did not....
> The jig hit my eye, and a shotgun sound banged through my head with a steady ringing sound. It knocked me unconscious for 5-10 seconds. When I gathered myself, I was on the deck floor in agonizing pain and bleeding from my eye socket with a grade 1 concussion. I absolutely could not see and thought my eye was gone.
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> The jig hook did not stick and the point of contact was not a center shot bullseye to the eye – thank goodness. The leadhead jig hit the outside corner of the eye and eye socket and the hook only scraped my area under the eye. I am so lucky my eye was not gone....
> BUT...I did sustain a pretty nasty eye injury that has and will affect my vision for the foreseeable future. I have more doctor appointments to attend but things are heading in the right direction. My retina does not seem to be detached, but the floating cells are still obstructing a clear view to the back of the eye. I have what they call floaters that look like little bugs on my eyelense. I also have little ruptures and hemorrhages in select areas of the eye. The optical routes and integrity of the retina are still intact but we need to keep healing. The retina and surrounding areas do have bruising and what I see is a constant blurry vision. With all that said, this is a good reminder to everyone to take the necessary precautions and slow down in life. And always protect yourself, especially your eyes!
So scary. VERY glad that it wasn’t even worse buddy! Hoping for a speedy and full recovery.
This reminds me of a different incident that happened back in 2019...
WARNING:
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From WI guide Bret Alexander – originally posted on Nov 12, 2019:
> [While netting a customer’s new PB walleye] I scooped the fish into the net and the lure flew out of the walleye’s mouth...flew into my left eye.
> After two surgeries to repair the damage, now it’s time to heal. As of right now I have no eyesight in my left eye but doctors feel they can get it back with a few more surgeries down the road.
> From this point forward I will always be wearing some type of eye protection – day or night – while fishing.
Seriously scary how fast life can throw you a curveball knuckleball:
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Btw Bret had posted an update a few months later saying that after 5 surgeries [!] they were able to get his vision back to 20/20  what a miracle! And if you follow him on FB, you’ll see he hasn’t slowed down on the fish catching ever since!
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Wiggle your “super worms” for weed walleyes?!
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Some super interesting details in this Walt Matan MidWest Outdoors write-up (cool story!) on how he wound-up fishing with a stranger he met in the fish-cleaning shack, and learned some cool tricks for weed walleyes. Few excerpts below:
> …buys ‘crawlers in bulk, packs them in bedding and keeps them in his beer and bait fridge in the garage. Then the night before going fishing he pulls out the ‘crawlers he needs and puts them in a can full of iced well water in the fridge overnight. These crawlers will pump up into supercrawlers, twice their normal size. However, they are only good for the next day’s fishing – then they shrink up.
> …his secret weapon: a 5/32-oz homemade jig painted hot pink with his wife Betsy’s nail polish. He slid the supercrawler on the hook nose-first and fired a cast to the weed edge.
> “You want to cast about 2′ into the [coontail] weed edge and [purposely] get the jig stuck in the weeds. You reel up until the line gets tight and then jiggle it until the jig pops free. That’s when they strike.”
Walt said he was finally getting bites once he started doing this technique, but missed a half dozen fish…while cleaning-shack Joe had already netted 3….
His other trick (after getting a bite) was opening up the bail and letting ’em eat the crawler for a 10-Mississippi count: One Mississippi, two Mississippi…ten Mississippi. Boom.
They proceeded to stick 2 dozen walleyes in 6 hours on an interesting technique that just might work on your local weed-dwellers.
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Show this to your boss....
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Posted by Dan Amundson on FB:
> “This walleye is a good representation of what your back will look like if you don’t get up from your desk and go fishing more!”
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*me typing this while I’m slouched over like a heathen lol woof*
Reminds me of a strange post from a few years back talking about 'what avid gamers could look like in 20 years’ time thanks to hours hunched over their consoles.”
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Which obviously made me think of how folks (myself included) stay hunched over their electronics while fishing – something that was multiplied times a zillion the second forward-facing sonar and “video game fishing” was added to the bow of the boat.
So I guess here’s your friendly reminder to occasionally stand up and stretch throughout the day?  Maybe do some aggressive rip jigging with plastics in the cabbage weeds instead HA!
And speaking of unique walleyes…
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This might be the merpiest walleye yet
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Was sent this unique critter from TW reader Bob Charlier (thx man!) who said his buddy John Foore caught it outta Lake Erie, OH.  Wild!
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They caught it while casting homemade ‘crawler harnesses with 1-oz egg sinkers in 21’ – would love to see underwater footage of that thing tracking down the bait and eating it LOL.
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1. AB: Black market walleye poaching bust
> On May 13, Alberta Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Services concluded a 2-year undercover investigation targeting repeat offenders involved in the illegal trafficking of fish in the Faust area near Lesser Slave Lake.
> During the course of the investigation, an estimated 2,200 lbs of game fish – including walleye, northern pike, and lake whitefish – were illegally harvested and trafficked from Lesser Slave Lake.
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> At the time of the arrest, officers seized the truck utilized in all three transactions. Additionally, a boat and two gill nets (with caught fish) were also seized.
I’m assuming the punishment will look something like this, before they’re back to doing it again:
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2. NWT ‘Angler of the Year’ update
Dylan Nussbaum is leading the AOY race after the first 2 events and Duane Hjelm is just 2 points behind him.
The next NWT event is happening July 10-11 on Lake Huron out of Alpena, MI.
3. WI: AIM National Championship happening right now
The top-10 teams from all 4 divisions are duking it out on Lake Superior/St. Louis River out of Barkers Island Inn. Tristan Beckwith and Isaac Lakich were leading after day 1 with 46.43 lbs (9.286-lb avg) – amazing bag! Can’t wait to hear how it all goes down.
4. MN has a new boater education law 
Folks are essentially going to need to get the boating-version of a 'drivers license' to operate a boat.
People born after June 30, 2004 will need 'em starting as early as this July – but the permit requirement will gradually apply to older age groups over the next few years.
- June 30, 2004 (starts July 1, 2025)
- June 30, 2000 (starts July 1, 2026)
- June 30, 1996 (starts July 1, 2027)
- June 30, 1987 (starts July 1, 2028)
More info here.
5. MN: Cormorant mgmt plan on Pelican Lake (Grant County)
> A 2021 DNR gill-net survey of the lake showed [walleye] catch rates “near a historical low,” a possible indication, the DNR said, that cormorants might be limiting the survival of young walleyes that are the key to sustaining a healthy walleye fishery.
Pelican Lake’s Egret Island is managed as a bird sanctuary and hosts one of the largest colonies of breeding cormorants in MN (1,716 active cormorant nests were counted with drone photography.
6. onX Fish now available in North Dakota
Now available in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota...and they’ll be adding more states throughout the year.
It’s literally a cheat code for researching fisheries (e-scouting!) and finding your new favorite honey hole. The onX Fish app has powerful filtering tools to search by species, trophy potential, keeper potential, and high abundance.
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I’ve been using it since last summer here in MN and have legitimately found multiple new lakes in my backyard holding walleyes – sometimes giants! – that I never knew existed. Oh, and did I mention it’s helped me find sneeeeaky ways to access water that I didn’t know was public? 
You can start a 7-day free trial and check it out for yourself! The app costs less than $3 a month, and that’s before you get 20% off when signing up with code: TW on their site.
WARNING: It’s absolutely addicting snooping around and checking out local lakes! Or finding those next out-of-town gems to add to the hit list.
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Btw you might want to invest in a BoatEFX Cover Trap and never lose another factory graph cover again:
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8. Gamakatsu has a new Crankbait Circle hook
> ...new concept in crankbait hooks which allows an angler to easily fish a plug in and around cover with less chance of hanging up. Incorporating the circle hook design increases an anglers hook to land ratio significantly, versus a standard treble style hook that is typically used on crankbaits.
9. Good read on RLVNT sunglasses
10. 2 new VPs at Suzuki
Brandon Cerka is VP of sales and marketing, and Jacob Ewing is VP of operations. Both internal promotions.
11. IL: Land donation for anti-Asian carp project is toxic
> The ground is contaminated by coal ash, the carcinogenic byproduct of burning that fossil fuel to generate electricity.
> No one knows for sure the extent of the pollution or its implications on public health because Midwest Generation, which ran the power plant, has refused to let anyone on the site before a deal is signed. But IL must remediate whatever land it acquires before turning it over to the US Army Corps of Engineers to break ground on the project.
> ...a legacy of toxic pollution that almost certainly leaves taxpayers, not Midwest Generation, to reel in the mess it left behind.
12. NY: Anti-milfoil treatment coming to 2 lakes
Applications were submitted to treat Eagle Lake and at Mountain View Lake in the Adirondacks with the chemical herbicide ProcellaCOR.
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How to set planer boards with mono vs braid
From this Jaydyn Thomas nugget on Virtual Angling. There's a video at that link as well if you'd rather watch and learn.
> When it comes to set-up, some anglers prefer to spool their trolling rods with monofilament line where the planer board attaches to the line via a system of clips. Mono is preferred by anglers who fish in clear water, where a long, invisible, clear leader is required. Ultra-clear lakes such as Green Bay and Lake Erie are also home to giant walleye, and the monofilament helps keep fish hooked up during those big head shakes with treble-hooked lures.
> Believe it or not, the type of line you choose impacts the lure’s action as well and sometimes walleye like the action provided by one or the other line varieties on a given day.
> For anglers targeting average-sized walleye in lakes with a bit of stain or color, braided lines are a strategic choice. Their sensitivity helps to ensure your lures are running correctly. As a bonus, braid helps get baits down deeper than they would when tied to mono.
> One minor inconvenience with braid is that clipping the planer board on where you want it can be a challenge as the clip will often slide the board down the line. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution. In this video, avid angler Jaydn Thomas shares a handy tip to keep boards in place on braid, ensuring your presentation is always running at the right depth.
> When running planer boards on braid, simply wrap the line around the lead clip once before fastening and then fasten the second clip as normal. This extra step will hold the clip in position and prevent it from sliding down the line as it’s pulled through the water but still ensures that it’s easy to remove when it’s time to land a fish.
> When letting your planer boards out, Thomas explains that it is also important to “walk” the board out to its desired distance with some tension on the spool. This can be done by either engaging the clicker (if your reel has one) or by putting pressure on the spool with your thumb as you let the line out. The tension makes the board bite down on the water’s surface to force the presentation out away from the boat.
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It’s getting to be the time of year when it’s pretty easy to spot a fish-head in the crowd.... Another gem from @mysterytacklebox on Insta:
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Those Croc dots are wild, tho!
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There were some absolute slobs caught during day 1 of the AIM National Championship on Lake Superior/St. Louis River. One of the first I saw posted on their FB yesterday was this 29.75” giant that Joe Bricko and Dylan Maki already had on their card by 8:45am:
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Hope you’re getting your heart rate up this weekend, too!
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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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Target Walleye – walleye during open water and all species during hardwater – is brought to you by Al Lindner, Jay Kumar, Chris Philen, 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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NWT Full Scoop: Mississippi River (La Crosse) winning details
