I made my first trip down to the Bay of Quinte this past weekend with a couple of friends. We fished both Friday and Saturday. On Friday we caught three walleye and on Saturday we got skunked. It was overcast and rained or drizzled most of both days. Friday the water was pretty rough early in the morning and calmed down in the afternoon. On Saturday, it was nice and calm in the morning and in the afternoon the winds came up and it was a pretty rough ride back to Picton.
I spoke to many other fishermen that were out on Friday or Saturday and most reported they got skunked and one boat reported catching a small walleye jigging. I'm sure some other people caught fish as well but I do think we got pretty lucky on Friday to catch the ones we did. The surface temperature was 54 degrees and I'd say it's probably a little early for the fall run just yet.
We were dragging 6 planer boards with an assortment of bare mono or some with snap weights and a 3 core and a 7 core with various body baits. We caught nothing on the leadcore, nothing with snap weights. All three fish were on the outside planner board, flat-line with 20 lb berkley big game mono.
After 4 or 5 hours of trolling the first planner board released and started heading behind the boat. Finally some action! We put the Quinte newbie on the rod. In short time he hauled in an 6 pound, 26 inch Walleye. A beautiful looking fish and a happy rookie to the Bay of Quinte.
This 6 pound walleye was caught with Reef Runner Gold Shiner 800 series
An hour or so later, the outside planner board fires off again and woohoo, the tug of war is on! One again we get the newbie on the rod and eventually he lands a beautiful 11 pound 10 ounce walleye. We were so excited we forgot to measure it's length. It was a personal best for my friend and he was pretty darn happy to be holding it up for this picture!
This 11 pound 10 ounce walleye was caught with a Rapala Purple Clown Tail Dancer 11
Just as the daylight was starting to diminish. The outside planer board fired off again. The fish comes to the surface pretty quickly and we can see it's just a little guy. My other fishing pal lands this 18 inch walleye. We didn't weight him but I'm guessing it would be 2 or 2 1/2 pounds. We kept him for the frying pan.
This 18 inch walleye was also caught with the same Rapala Purple Clown Tail Dancer 11
We went out again on Saturday and tried a variety of lures and depths with no luck. We marked a ton of fish down deep as usual along with some nice clouds of bait. I will likely be back most weekends until freeze up.
Good luck out there!
Kevin