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If you’re getting Target Walleye for the first time, a friend probably signed you up!
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Chase Parsons skinny-dipped for $82K on Lake Francis Case!
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Even his security guards were smiling afterwards:
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Fish-head Chase Parsons’ 2-day bag (10 fish) of 31.70 lbs at the Lake Francis Case NWT landed him cash/prizes totalling $81,922 + some serious bragging rights! Get the full winning deets in NWT’s Insider Report – few quotes below:
> 10 yrs ago on Lake Oahe, the then 27-yr-old Parsons revealed a new technique to the walleye world – aggressively trolling bass spinnerbaits through deep, flooded trees. It was an eye-opening victory, one of several “The Next Bite” TV crew has become famous for. This time, now downstream on Lake Francis Case, Parsons took nearly the opposite approach, yet achieved the same result.
Opposite in that he was fishing ultra skinny water in the waaaay back of creeks.
> After a mediocre prefish, Parsons and fellow Strike King pro Tommy Kemos decided to do something rare on the second to last day of practice – fish together. With time dwindling, they wanted to be thorough as they searched for one specific pattern.
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> Chase: “We basically just started looking for a shallow pitching bite. With sidescan, we could see some packs of fish. We’re pretty confident in our pitching abilities, and most of the time when we’re pitching, we’re artificial guys. Tom threw an artificial, and I threw a fathead. Almost immediately I got a bite with the fathead. And then in the next 20 minutes, we caught 5 big ones on fatheads. All we did from then on was try and find similar spots.
> “We were targeting the backs of creeks. I’m talking the back, back, where it comes up and it’s just sand. In practice, we caught some pre-spawners, and during the tournament we caught some post-spawners. I assume that they were going back there to spawn. The water was dirty, but you could see the fish plain as day on sidescan. Some of the bays had catfish, pike and smallies, and some of the bays had mainly walleyes. They were just sitting way back in the warmer water in 2-8′. It’s fitting we took 1st and 2nd because we figured it out together. We sort of did the opposite of everyone else, and it worked.”
Lot of teams were catching 60+ walleyes a day during the tourney, while Chase said they were lucky to get 5 in the well…. But quality > quantity in a 5-fish derby and these fellas grinded it out:
> “The scary thing was that we weren’t getting numbers and our bite was dying. Going into the tournament, I was not worried about getting overs, but I knew it was possible to come in without a 5-fish limit. Today we only caught 6 fish.
> “I was pitching 1/4-oz Strike King crater-head jigs (chartreuse). I would give the rod only small whiffs, not popping them. They were super lethargic. On only about 20% of the bites did you actually feel the tick. I think they were just chilling back there…they would just mouth it a lot of times.”
Those Strike King crater-head jigs have a crater/concave type of bottom so the bait stands up…also catch water and glide a little bit more than traditional jigs. Believe they’re still being developed but I’ll keep you posted when us common folk (lol) are finally able to get our hands on some:
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> Chase: “This entire Missouri River system is special to me and to my dad [Gary Parsons]. The style of fishing just fits my eye. You have to move around a lot and adjust. I’m confident out here, and when you’re confident, you just fish better. It’s funny…at Oahe, I was using probably the most aggressive technique possible. And this week, it was the polar opposite. Instead of finding them with down scan and fishing fast (Oahe), we found them with side scan and fished slow.
> “At Oahe, I was in by 10am every day. I knew I had that one won. This one I didn’t expect to win. I’ve had a rough last 2 or 3 years. This one lets me know in the back of my mind that I’m doing everything right. The best feeling of all is knowing I have my 7- and 9-yr-old watching back home.”
No doubt it runs in the family – whole bunch of AWESOME going on in these pics:
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Pending world-record redear sunfish caught!
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Wisconsinite Thomas Farchione road-tripped to AZ’s Lake Havasu and caught the new pending world-record redear sunfish dropshotting a nightcrawler. Weighed 6.3 lbs and went 17″ long with a ridiculous 20″ girth. WOW!
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Too bad Havasu never freezes over so we could chase those monsters northern-style lol. Wonder how big of an auger you’d need to get that freak thru?! 🕳
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How to catch spring (pre-spawn) crappies on mini jerkbaits.
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Where I’m at in central MN we still have 10 days to go before the walleye season opens 😑🤦♂️⏳. Man, what I wouldn’t give to have an early catch-and-release walleye season here! Oh, and the ability to use 2 lines at times…. But those are conversations for a different day lol. So while we hurry up and wait, chasing panfish can be a good way to kill time.
If you’ve never thrown micro crankbaits for spring panfish = you’re missing out! It can be a super fun way to target pre-spawn crappies soon as they’re staging in 6-10′ weeds just outside of shallow spawning areas.
Water temps are getting right – here’s how I use the tiny #4 (1.5″, 1/16 oz) and #6 (2.5″, 1/8 oz) Rapala X-Raps to make crappie fishing feel a bit more gamey:
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Circle hooks kill half as many walleyes?
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Pretty interesting. No doubt circle hooks seem to get way more fish in the lips instead of the throat when rigging live bait. Buuuut if nearly 1/3 of the walleyes you catch are dying, then you must be taking way too long to set the hook…. 🤷♂️ Just saying.
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I’ve heard of flying fish before…
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…but this takes it to a whole new level! 🤯 This Ward Transport driver in NC might be the first person ever to hit a crappie with their truck?!?! Glad no one was hurt! And luckily it should be a easier explaining that to the insurance company since there’s video proof:
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Literally every single time I’ve been out for a lap around the lake in a friend’s pontoon, I’ve wondered why in the heck we don’t have at least a couple of crankbaits following us around?! Oh, and obviously need a Side Imaging unit on there if you’re going to be strolling around at 4-5 mph all over the place anyway lol.
Btw I’ve also heard of folks clamping those rod holders right onto fishing piers and bridges…. Looks like they’ve got a bunch in stock right now if you’re shopping.
8. WI sold a record # of fishing licenses in the 20/21 season.
Up 12% from the previous year at 1,372,467 licenses sold. State tourism officials say fishing brings in more than $2 bil to the state each year.
9. IA “Walleye Weekend” had a record turn out.
10. Field & Stream and Outdoor Life now only digital.
> The economics of the print business can no longer support our legacy title.
No doubt the end of an era for these national monsters.
11. If you’re looking for a hi-vis braid…
…check out the “coastal camo” color Sufix 832. It’s funny ‘cuz the color was actually designed for saltwater but is now taking off everywhere since it’s hi-viz for watching your line “pop” when a fish grabs it, but the pattern still blends in the water. And bonus points for looking sick 😎 spooled-up on the reel.
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Please take just a couple minutes to fill out this Target Walleye survey and have a shot at winning a little pile o’ fishing lures! 👀 I’m going to throw in a pair of Millennium Marine SpyderLok Rod Pods to boot. And if you’ve already jumped on it = thanks much for doing it and also thank YOU for reading! Click here to take the survey.
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Best Side Imaging frequencies.
No doubt modern electronics can be confusing, but I came across this Tactical Bassin’ video that does a good job of breaking down the differences between running 455 kHz, 800 kHz, and 1,200 kHZ (aka 1.2 MEGAhertz) on your Side Imaging unit.
Basically more power = more detail. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should always be running at the highest power – news to me. The farther you want to search from the boat, the lower the frequency you wanna use….
Here’s the the short version on how Tim Little from Tactical Bassin’ does it:
Uses 455 khz when in “search mode” – scanning a broader location, in deeper water. Not looking for fish…he’s looking for structure 190-250′ [!] out each side of the boat. At those ranges you’d see the higher-power frequencies sort of “fade off” into darkness.
Here’s a screenshot from his video showing how the 455 kHz (bottom) picks up a boulder transition 150′ to 190′ off to the right – switched over to 800 kHz (top) at the same spot and it couldn’t quite reach the goods:
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When he graphs structure waaaay out to the side at 455 kHz that he wants a better look at, he swings over to it and switches to 800 kHz to get a more-detailed picture and “dial it in.” Says you need to be closer to the schtuff you’re graphing – drops down his range to scan 100′ out to each side – but will get a clearer picture.
Now if you’ve got the 1,200-ish kHz MEGA Imaging, that’s gonna give the highest-rez/clearest picture of what’s going on – but has the shortest range. Running it 60-90′ out each side is typically gonna give you the sharpest image…talkin’ razor-sharp to actually see fish hidden in-and-around the structure you’re scanning.
More info on all the above in Tactical Bassin’s full video here:
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“He not only kicked my butt in the tournament, he also beat me pre-fishing from the back of my own boat.”
– That’s Tommy Kemos talking in this NWT Insider Report about his 2nd-place finish (buddy Chase Parsons got 1st) at Lake Francis Case.
Tommy is one of those guys that always seems to catch ’em, and the first NWT stop of the year was no different – he finished just 1.5 lbs behind Chase to land in 2nd place, and did so with only 4 fish on the last day. Apparently he landed 4 of the 6 fish he stuck, but he also missed a few bites.
> “Coming in I was just disgusted with myself. Then I realized Chase was going to win. The sting of losing those fish kind of went away when Chase won the tournament…he deserved to win.”
He was running the same program as Chase, one they figured out together during practice. Also caught his fish pitching “chartreuse” 1/4-oz Strike King crater-head jigs (which he designed) with fatheads. Congrats man! And awesome sportsmanship.
Btw that’s Tommy’s fourth top-10 finish in the last 6 NWT events, including three 2nd-place finishes. Dude is a straight-up 🔨!!! Those plus more interesting stats here from John Balla coming off the Lake Francis Case NWT.
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If walleyes ever figured out how to use Instagram, and could post a pic of their meal before they ate it, I think it’d look something like this:
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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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