Here’s the ‘Full Scoop’ on how the top-finishing pros at the last National Walleye Tour event on Bay de Noc (out of Gladstone, MI) caught 'em better than the rest. 🎯 Little details and specifics you won’t find anywhere else. BIG thx to our friend Brett Carlson for helping to track 'em down. Now, here we go!

Tournament walleye fishing has long been known as an old timer’s sport, a venture where instincts and ability must be combined with years and years of on-the-water experience. Over the last decade, however, a new wave of young guns have arrived on the scene....

This started in 2018, when 20-year-old Pennsylvania rookie Dylan Nussbaum shocked the world and won an NWT on Devils Lake sight unseen.

One event later, at the 2018 championship on Lake of the Woods, 21-year-old rookie Max Wilson became the youngest championship winner in history.

In 2021, Eric McQuoid stole that accolade from Wilson by winning the NWT Championship on Otter Tail Lake at 21 years, 4 months of age.

This week at Bays de Noc in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 19-year-old rookie Jayden Wendel swiped Nussbaum’s record by becoming the youngest pro to ever win an NWT qualifier.

NWT photo



Just one year ago, Wendel graduated from Valley City High School in eastern North Dakota. After graduation, he took his interest in tournament walleye fishing to the next level. In three consecutive weekends, Wendel fished the Montana Governor’s Cup, the North Dakota Governor’s Cup, and the Dakota Walleye Classic. In all three, he took 2nd place.

> “That sequence is what really got me going,” Wendel recalled. “All three of those are big tournaments with around 200 boats. I knew if I could compete in those, it was time to take the next step. Plus, with the news about limiting the entries next year to 50 or 75, I knew it was time to give it a try.”

Wendel grew up fishing Minnesota’s Detroit Lakes area, and his passion for walleyes came not from his father, but from YouTube.

> “My dad wasn’t big on fishing himself, but he could tell that I was obsessed. I was the kid who would fish by himself on the dock for four or five hours. As a 12-year-old, fishing was all I was watching – both bass and walleye. I kept on asking my dad if we could fish walleye tournaments, and when I was 14, he finally said yes.” 

To start his rookie NWT campaign, Wendel was essentially flying solo, until he met up with fellow 19-year-old Beau Schilling. The two had highly successful openers on Erie, and now fully team up with Beau’s father, veteran stick Chad Schilling. The younger Schilling currently sits in 2nd place in the Angler of the Year race, just a single point behind McQuoid.

> “I had obviously never been to Green Bay before. In practice, we broke it down so Chad took Little Bay, Beau took Big Bay, and I took more of the main lake stuff. It was Beau who found some good fish in the middle of Big Bay.”

Wendel described his primary area as a flat in 20 to 24 feet. After a recent mayfly hatch, the younger Schilling found they were suspended high in the water column.

> “It was right out from Garden Bay – probably a 32- or 33-mile run from Gladstone. Some of the fish were hitting just below the surface, but most were 5 to 10 feet down. I think they were eating mayflies and waiting for alewives. We would cast 30 feet past them and then just finesse it in.”

Wendel exclusively used a 3/16-oz VMC Tungsten Moon Eye Jig (white) with a full night crawler.

> “I used the longest and skinniest crawler I could find. I felt it had the best action with really subtle double twitches. I was trying to get the crawler to roll as best I could. I would cast past it and then slowly bring it over their head. If you watched the livestream, it looks like I’m almost reeling it in, but I’m giving it little twitches. I call it a micro twitch. I wanted to keep that thing as smooth as possible with a slow and steady twitch.”

Wendel would not spend large amounts of time hunting down singular fish with numerous casts.

> “If they were chasing really close, I would give them one more cast. To be honest, three was about the maximum I would give a fish. I would say the ones that were suspended that high, 75-80% would bite. When they are that high in the water column, I think they are there to eat. That area also had the warmest water we could find all week. It was 67 degrees there, and almost everywhere else it was barely above 60.”

Wendel’s tournament started fast and furious. After not seeing a fish for the first 20 minutes, he found the pod he was looking for, and 10 minutes later had a 7.5-lber and an 8.5-lber. He then left to hunt for slots. In this event, culling was permitted, and anglers were allowed to keep two walleyes over 23 inches and three under 23 inches each day.

> “I made a 10-mile run to Ogontz Bay. We found some perfect fish sitting above sparse weeds. The water was 12 to 15 feet, and the weeds sat 2- or 3-feet tall. We kept upgrading unders all day. I think we had 13.5 lbs on unders on day 1.”

On day 2, Wendel started by returning to his Garden Bay flat. After catching several 6- and 7-lbers, a 9.5-lber bit at 9:30. A few decent unders followed. He debated running back to Ogontz to upgrade unders, but ultimately decided to stay and try to improve his other over.

> “At 12:30, I saw a giant 2 feet off the bottom. I threw at it and sent my jig down to the bottom. Then I twitched it for 20 or 30 seconds. It finally bit off the bottom, and I handed it to my co-angler. He’s fighting this thing, and my eyes about popped out of my head. It was probably the hardest fighting fish I’ve ever seen. We were in shock. It was the biggest fish we caught all week. I want to say that big one was the only one I weighed off the bottom.” 

The giant measured 31.75 inches and weighed 10.75 lbs. At this point, the 19-year-old rookie had another major decision to make. With two stellar overs, one of which was deteriorating, he debated returning to Gladstone to weigh in early versus running to Ogontz to upgrade unders.

> “I only had 8.5 lbs in slots, and I knew I could get another 2 lbs, but if one of the other fish died, I could lose weight too. It was a tough decision. I decided to make a slow ride back. From 2 to 5 p.m., I was just sitting there waiting to weigh in. I knew it was going to be close.”

With perfect unders on day 1, Wendel weighed 29 pounds, 12 ounces. With amazing overs on day 2, he weighed 29 pounds, 15 ounces, giving him a cumulative total of 59 pounds, 11 ounces.

> “I think the key was throwing a lighter jig than everyone else. I was slowing that cadence down and letting them sit behind it. Sometimes they would follow it for 15 seconds before they would grab it. And the other thing was not wasting too much time on a single fish. If it didn’t bite, find another fish.”

Wendel initially had his LiveScope set to 120 feet. When he identified a suspended fish, he would change his settings to 65. 

> “Up that high, they were just glowing on the graph. With 10 feet of water clarity, I tried to keep the boat about 55 to 65 feet away. At 30 feet, it was game over, and they would swim away. When I changed the settings, I could get a better look and tell if they were fat or skinny.” 

For rods, Wendel opted for either a 7’ 3” or 7’ 6” JT Outdoors JTX Mag Lite, which has light power and fast action. For reels, he used Daiwa Kage 2500s. His main line was 22-lb Sunline Almight (orange) sinking braid, and he ran a 5- or 6-ft leader of 12-lb Daiwa J-Fluoro Samurai fluorocarbon.

For his first tour-level victory, Wendel earned a prize package valued at $119,245. 🤑

> “Being a teenager, that’s kind of crazy. Not many guys my age even have the opportunity. It’s just crazy to be the youngest ever. And Beau being four months older than me, I know he can’t take that record. To be honest though, with no Rookie of the Year award, being the youngest winner was our main goal this year. We thought it was realistic, and we did it.”

The Isle, MN native, Eric McQuoid, has earned quite the Green Bay reputation after moving to Algoma, WI. While he mainly fishes Wisconsin waters, he’s no stranger to the Bay’s Michigan offerings.

> “I definitely had to do a little extra work,” said the 26-year-old. “We knew there were fish up there, but we were surprised to see how many fish there were. If you threw at everything, you could catch 20 to 40 walleyes fairly easily.”

As practice progressed, the alewives started showing up. This caused some walleyes to migrate in pursuit. What looked like a bulletproof program suddenly showed signs of waning.

> “On day 1, my plan was to get unders first. I hit four or five spots in Little Bay – running the east side and working my way southeast. I fished for two hours with nothing.”

McQuoid then made a 10- to 12-mile run south to the main lake to target (mainly) overs.

> “I caught a 22-incher right away at 9 a.m. Then I caught a 23 1/64. I threw it in the box because we didn’t have an over yet, but I was hoping it would shrink just a bit in the livewell. It went 4-14, but I never officially weighed it because we upgraded an over and it never shrank. It was so close. In hindsight, it could have been the winning fish.”

By 10:30 Thursday, McQuoid had three unders and two decent overs in the livewell – a 6.5 and an 8.5-lber.

> “I had about 26 pounds, a pretty good bag, so I went further into the main lake to look for an even bigger over. I hit two or three more rock bar-type spots. At 1 pm, I threw at a rock, then panned the LiveScope over and saw a fish. I saw a giant mark following me, so I just opened the bail, and she bit. That was my last fish.”

McQuoid finished day one with 28 pounds, 4 ounces. While LiveScope was obviously important, he was oftentimes throwing blind because the walleyes were tucked so tight to the rocks.

> “I would say it was 50% old-school fishing and 50% casting at specific fish. Lots of the walleyes were laying down in the rocks, so you couldn’t see them on LiveScope. Every once in a while, you would see a glimpse. But the water was so clear you couldn’t get close enough to change angles and get a good look at them. More than half my casts were blind casts.” 

On day 2, he skipped Little Bay entirely and headed straight out to the lake. It took a few minutes to relocate the school, then it was slow and steady for the first hour. At 9 am, the bite window opened and chaos ensued.

> “By 10, we had three good unders and a 7.9 and a 5.5 for overs. It was a solid bag, but we were looking for more, so we kept heading south. I hit four or five spots, and I lost a big one that probably would’ve helped.”

At 12:29, McQuoid saw what looked like a log sitting on top of some shale rock.

> “I was using Perspective mode, and at first it just looked like a log. Then I thought it was going to be a pike. I set the hook, and it was just over 31 inches. I thought it was over 10 when we were on the water, but when I looked at it again before weigh-in, I knew it was over 11 pounds. I knew that one gave us an honest chance. I knew I was going to be in the running.”

[I saw him catch that freakazoid on his livestream during the tourney. This was just after he set the hook and that big mark came stretching out from behind the rock...]

[A short-but-intense battle later and Eric was adding this magnum to the livewell! 💪]

Hitting a few spots on the way back north, McQuoid was able to upgrade a slot and gain an additional pound. 

> “That last slot was 4 pounds, 5 ounces. At that point, I was getting real excited. The only frustrating part is that we caught several more that were just over the 23-inch mark.”

McQuoid finished the day with 30 pounds, 11 ounces, and the tournament with 58 pounds, 15 ounces. Of his 10 weigh fish, 8 came on a 3/8-oz Kalin’s Google Eye Hair Jig (purple chartreuse), and 2 came on a #7 Reef Runner Flash Shad (candy man).

> “I was trying to get it to hop 1 to 2 feet. It was just kind of a slow hop, trying to mimic gobies hopping around down there. If I could see them on ‘Scope, I would stop it above them for a half second or a second, then I would drop it to the bottom and give it the same cadence.”

Most of McQuoid’s fish were in the rocks and not suspended. If they were suspended, he would make them go down and eat.

> “Some of the rocks would go from 4 feet on top all the way down to 30 feet. With the hair jig, I have better luck getting them down to eat. If I was throwing a crawler, I’d have better luck keeping it above them. Plus, I didn’t want them to look up and see the boat. If they were going down, they weren’t spooking.”

He used a similar, subtle cadence with the Flash Shad. 

> “It was slow hops 2 to 3 feet up off the bottom. Most of the time they were eating it on the bottom, but every once in a while they would eat it on the fall.”

On some of McQuoid’s rocks, water clarity was pushing 20 feet. Even with the hair jig, he was trying to hit his target 70 to 100 feet from the boat.

With the hair jig, he used a 7’ 4” Elliott Identity Rig and Jig rod, which has medium-light power and fast action. For the Flash Shad, he went with the 7’ 2” Elliott Identity Reaction Bait rod, which has medium power and fast action. His reel of choice was the 2000-sized Piscifun Carbon X3 spinning reel. His main line was 15-lb Berkley X9 (flame green). With the hair jig, he had a 5-foot leader of clear 12-lb Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. On the Flash Shads, he tied his baits to a 5-foot leader of clear 15-lb fluorocarbon.

With two events remaining, McQuoid is leading the Angler of the Year race with 592 points, just one ahead of Schilling.

> “It’s crazy. I don’t ever remember a race like this. It shows you how much more competitive it’s getting year after year. It really makes you fish harder every single day. I have confidence that I can do well, but I know those other guys are hammers and can catch them everywhere.”

In an ordinary year, Dylan Nussbaum would have a comfortable lead in the AOY race with 583 points over three events. But McQuoid and Schilling are having nearly flawless seasons. As it stands, Nussbaum sits in 3rd, the same place he finished the Bays de Noc event.

> “I came here thinking it was going to be a grinder event,” said the Pennsylvania pro. “As soon as I got here, I very quickly realized that was not the case. There were thousands of walleyes, and they were eating. It was nothing like I thought it was going to be.”

After a strong practice, Nussbaum had options. He started the tournament by targeting his unders on the east side of Little Bay de Noc. After getting three decent ones on day 1, he ran south to the main lake.

> “We couldn’t really find them right away, but eventually we came across one school of about fifteen 8-lbers. The first one was an 8.5, and the next cast was an 8.1.”

With a solid stringer in the livewell at 11 am, Nussbaum wanted to sample Big Bay. The overs were generally bigger, but there was also more boat traffic.

> “I thought we could do better, and Big Bay was always in the back of my mind. I was torn about checking it out versus avoiding it. In the end, I just needed to go over there and see it for myself.”

Around 12:30 or 1 pm, Nussbaum began hearing a whining noise from his engine. As the sound worsened, he elected to head back. The day’s only 5 walleyes weighed 27 pounds, 4 ounces.

> “We babied it back. It got so loud at the end we could barely talk to each other. We lost hours of fishing, but we were happy to be back. And after seeing 50 boats in Big Bay with the water clearing up and the fish getting spookier, I knew I wasn’t returning on day two.”

Nussbaum again started on the east side of Little Bay for unders, but the bite was tougher. After an hour and a half, he left the bay and headed south with 4 small slots. Soon after, he found a breakline with big ones.

> “My second spot wasn’t necessarily loaded. There would be times where you’d go half an hour without seeing one. But when you found the school, it was game on, and the fish were thick too. The fish that were 28-inchers were 8 lbs. The 30-inchers were 10-lbers. Our fish were puking up shad and alewives. The shad thing kind of threw me for a loop, but that’s what was in the livewell.”

The first over of the day was a 7.5-lber that his co-angler reeled. Soon after, a 4.5-lber followed. Within 30 minutes, Nussbaum caught a 9.3, which allowed him to cull the 4.5-lber.

> “That 9.3 gave me all the confidence to stay there for the rest of the day. We then caught two perfect unders that were 4-lbers. At that point, I saw a perfect mark, and it smoked the Jigging Rap, missed it, then came back and smoked it again. I handed it over to my co-angler, but it was foul hooked, so we had to throw it back. We then went over two hours with no fish.”

Just after 2 p.m., they caught another under that nearly hit the 4-pound mark. At 2:30, his second giant struck.

> “I ripped the Jigging Rap once, she thumped it, but I missed her. My line came straight up, and the fish came straight back up and smoked it again. It was a 9.8-pounder. There was still some room for upgrades, but it was a near-perfect day. To be honest, I thought there was a real chance this could happen – that I could win. I also knew Eric, Jayden, and Beau had a real good chance to get them too.”

Nussbaum’s final tally from Friday was 31 pounds, 4 ounces, which was the second-heaviest stringer of the tournament. His 2-day total settled at 58-8. 

While the #9 Jigging Rap (blue chrome) accounted for most of his fish, the 4-inch Jerk ShadZ (perfect perch) triggered three of the four overs. Each morning, he started in Little Bay with the Rapala PXR Deep Mavrik 110 jerkbait (metallic yellow perch).

The final breakdown was four fish (3 slots, 1 over) on the Jigging Rap, three (all overs) on the Jerk ShadZ, two (slots) on the Deep Mavrik 110, and one on a jig and a crawler. The Jerk ShadZ was rigged on a 1/2-oz VMC RedLine Series Tungsten Swimbait Jig (matte grey).

> “I would start with the jerkbait, and I fished it as aggressively as you can in 6 to 14 feet. I would rarely pause it. I would get it down to the depths to get their attention and then rip, rip, rip.”

Out on the main lake, he would continue triggering reaction bites in 20 to 35 feet.

> “The water was clear, and the fish were spooky, so I was casting 100 to 110 feet away. If you got within 80 feet, half of them would spook. If there were waves slapping the boat, they would dart and be gone.

> "If they were suspended 15 or 20 feet down, I’d snap it above their heads to get their attention, but then pendulum it back down to the bottom. That would slow the bait down and give them some time to eat it. Then I’d let it sit there for two seconds, then rip it again. This was the same with the Jerk ShadZ, but with smaller rips. It was about getting their attention, then taking them down to the bottom. This was not a slow, crawler presentation at all for me. You had to get them fired up...then they couldn’t resist.” 

With both the Jigging Rap and the 1/2-oz jig, Nussbaum used the 6’ 10” mag-medium light power, fast action 13 Fishing Myth Jigging Rap rod. For reels, he ran KastKing Zephyr 2000s. His main line of choice was 12-lb Sufix 832 (ghost) with a 6-foot leader of 12-lb Sufix Advance Fluoro (clear).

On the jerkbait, he used the 6’ 10” medium power, fast action KastKing Speed Demon rod with a KastKing MG 12 reel. Tied to the Mavrik 110 was straight 12-lb Sufix Advance Fluorocarbon.

> “I feel like I blew it on day 2 at Lake Oahe. But for this one, I was really happy with my big box on day 2. More time on day 1 possibly could have helped, but you never know. I am happy with this one.”

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Killer Robert Cardenas shot from takeoff at the Bay de Noc NWT event! 🔥 Kaiden Dorris must've engaged the wings on his rig:

On to the next! ✌️

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