SHORT TRIP FOR WALLEYE

SHORT TRIP FOR WALLEYE

Dateline: Little Bay de Noc near Escanaba, Michigan; 2-28-09


I had very little time to fish today. A friend and his son visiting from Wisconsin had just three hours to tag along this morning, as we took a stab at some walleye action on the Bay.

After setting up and with travel time we would have about two hours to tempt the walleyes I know from experience frequent this area in the late season. We stopped at Bay View Baitshop for a non-resident license and some three-inch shiner minnows. I had an all-terrain vehicle available from another friend who lives near the mouth of the Escanaba River, and I had a freight sled we could pull behind the machine, so we fished there.

My friend sat on the cargo rack on the back of the ATV, and his son sat in the sled along with the gear we would need to fish with. The permanent shanty we would use was located just north of the river mouth, so we headed out on a slow, bumpy ride across the ice.

A powerful wind storm sculpted the bay with great snow drifts just two days prior to this trip. Looking at some of these natural creations as we entered the bay made me hesitate to blast through them on the machine. Off to the north, lay a long line of snow dunes that looked like a frozen scene from the Sahara. Eastward, spiked snow drifts looked like miniature mountains. Scalloped snow swirls to the south reminded me of icing on an angel food cake.

An unexpected development earlier in the week gave my confidence a boost. Officers from the Department of Natural Resources broke up a large-scale poaching ring running two thousand feet of illegal nets nearby that may have been hauling out hundreds of fish daily. Apparently, the poachers had been working at night. We knew our catch rate had been down this season in this area, but we did not know why. This unexpected bust could only help our fishing.

The shanty was set along an underwater slope leading to the actual river mouth. Logs, boulders, ship staves, and many other objects that had washed down with the current provided bottom cover. I set my friend up with a Jigging Rapala tipped with a minnow tail, and rigged a slip float for his son, set at two feet above bottom. By letting the jigging lure fall to bottom and bouncing it there several times a cloud of sediment would raise up, which can attract passing fish. After bumping bottom several times, the lure is raised up about three feet and jigged at that level. I used a similar tactic with a bright orange lure while he used a “clown” colored style (white, with red and blue spots).

Within the first hour my friend landed a 25" slab sided walleye from 24 feet of water. The fish was very chunky and solid for this length. We could see it coming up from the depths in the Bay’s ultra-clear water. I gaffed the fish since trying to grab one that size at the hole by hand often lets them escape. Before the two-hour time frame was up we missed one additional fish that hit but failed to hook up solidly. Action was slow, but at least we managed one very nice fish.

Later at home I filleted it and found it was a large male. Its stomach was empty, which surprised me since it looked like it must have been stuffed with gobies or something. I’ll be returning to the river mouth this week to see if normal fish movements resume now that the nets have been removed. This is the first year the walleye season has been extended until March 15 here in the Upper Peninsula, and I’m happy to take advantage of it. Meanwhile my friend was returning to the Rhinelander area with the fillets packaged and in a cooler. He intended to cook them later that evening.


Copyright Ray Hansen, 2009