It's been a long time since I had a fishing trip worthy of reporting on, but this past weekend was great! Went out late Saturday night on a whim with a buddy after seeing a nearly full moon and nil-winds. Hit the river around 10:30pm and fished till about 1am. Tried a pass on an unlikely spot, more to rule it out before hitting my regular areas than anything. Literally as I uttered the words "this spot is dead, let's pull lines and..." WHAM! I got a doozy of a hit and reeled up what was probably a 5lb walleye!
I think this was that fish, not exactly sure as there was only a few pics between 2 phones from the night:
Surprised to have seen a walleye in the shallow weeds...this guy hit in about 10 fow on a perch minnow rap. We continued to troll the unlikely walleye spot and picked up a fish on each pass, all good sized 4-6 lbrs, all quickly released, most without a pic as the bites were coming quick. Here's my buddy with one:
Surprisingly we hit a few nice crappie also, on large stick baits
never expected that :
Same night, different outfit...it was cold and dew had settled in on the boat soaking everything!
Foolishly we left the unlikeliest of hot-spots for the regular stomping grounds around 12:30am under a bright, nearly full moon. Took one pass and didn't catch anything despite marking a ton of fish
Barely able to keep our eyes open at this point and nearly out of coffee, we debated one final pass through the spot we'd started in and I am REALLY glad we did. About 30 seconds into the troll, in about 12 fow over some weeds I got a crushing strike and nearly lost the rod as I was multi-tasking with the rod, coffee and fish finder at the time. Possibly one of my best-to-date battles ensued
. My apologies to the good people of cardinal who were surely awoken by our loud profanities as I saw the large marbled eyes of a monster walleye come up from the dark water
This guy wasn't done. Several tense drag peelings later and he was boatside. With an inexperienced net man in the dark, I was nervous as the adrenalin of such a beautiful and massive walleye brought a weakness to my knees. He ran as my buddy slipped the net under him tail first and we nearly lost him, but with the lure sideways in his big yap it wasn't likely he'd be able to throw the hooks. A few more runs later and he was subdued in the net:
I've caught bigger trolling quinte in December, but that was with a 9' rod, inline planar and 200' of line...this one was far more exciting on light tackle with a short flat-line in the dark!
Let's just call it an even 11lbr,
I wish I'd taken a length on him...he was healthy but not fat or stuffed with eggs like the sows I've caught in Quinte. This was a lean-mean river-walleye, probably the longest walleye I've ever caught. Not quite a personal best, but a new personal favorite catch! He swam away strong after a quick release.
We left shortly after, returned the following night with another buddy having told of such fast and furious walleye action. Hit the water earlier around 8:30 under same bright moon with no wind. Less than 1 minute into the night something slammed my stickbait and came right to the surface...smallies at night? That's a first for me:
Just shy of 4lbs...that was fun with a few treble hooks boat side in the dark!
Worked really hard to hook up for the rest of the night and only managed a 3.5lb walleye and another big crappie. Threw everything in the box and fished 'till 3:30am, buddy didn't even get a bite! I can't explain what changed in 24 hours with very similar moon/weather but I'm still smiling about the biggun!
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