You guys had to know this was going to happen. After a super slow week of walleye action, a bit of cloud cover, a bit of wind and, sure enough, the walleye start to feed again.
Saturday evening saw our guys catching and releasing multiple limits of nice-sized walleye. There are a few under-sized (less than 14.5 inches) that were released, but the bulk of the catch was within the keeper slot. Slip-bobber leeching (or leeching slip-bobbering?) seemed to be the ticket in the 8-10 ft depth. There were fewer bass caught proportionally in the last few days. Sunday, during the day produced a few, Again the evening saw limit catches.
I am a firm believer in switching from a leech-bobber to a jig/leech or jig/worm at dusk. Flipping a baited jig into the shallows, tight against shore as it gets dark will get the ones who move in shallow to feed.
Proof: my personal-best Kipawa walleye. I nailed a 31 and 1/2 inch monster last night, just as it became dark. Those who were here over the past week or two know the spot: where I was telling folks to try jigging. I threw the yellow jig with a leech a couple of feet from shore, gave two pulls, then felt a light tap. I stopped, gave it a bit a line, then slowly pulled until I felt some weight. I set the hook, and for the next 10 minutes, wrestled with the big gal. 6 lb test, no leader, light action rod and a tiny net, in the dark, but somehow managed to get her in. Of course, I was by myself (except for Kip who slept through the battle) and didn’t have a camera, but this was one, big, post-spawn female that was released to breed again.
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There has been a lot of speculation lately about the effect that smallmouth bass is having on the lake, especially after a week where the walleye weren’t active, and all we were catching seemed to be bass. I’ll talk more about this in a later post, but in the meantime, take a look at some of the research on walleye-smallmouth co-exisitence. It is interesting:
https://www.sdstate.edu/nrm/outreach/videos/upload/Wuellner-Melissa-R-Ph-D-2009.pdf
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/337846.pdf
Till then…