Kim had a few tricks of his own as it turned out and I'm pretty sure he won the battle today. These two guys had never met before today, but Kim wanted to get out fishing with me and Dewey was nice enough to let him come along on this trip.
The fish were still right where we left them yesterday and there activity level was still on high. All we had to do was let out enough line so that the crankbaits would occasionally tick bottom, and they would snap it up. Most of them in the morning hours were on the small side and only a few were over the 15" minimum limit for keepers. It didn't really matter though because even when these two guys finally did get one or two that were of legal size, they just put it back in the lake anyway.
Cloudy skies would occasionally open up just enough to let a bit of sun shine through but we did have to keep a close eye on one storm that rolled through about 10:00am but we never did leave the lake.We got rained on pretty hard and the wind blew quite strong for awhile but in the end, nothing of any consequence appeared to be on its way.
After that storm blew through, we started to move around a bit. On our first pass through one area, Kim hooked up with what appeared to be a very big walleye. We even got a glimpse of this fish a couple of times and I was pretty sure it was a walleye. But after a very good battle, somehow it magically turned into a channel catfish. Dang it all! Sure did look like a walleye!
Every spot we checked had fish on it. Mostly small ones but a few over 15" here and there. When there preference for crankbaits slowed down, we switched over to the crawler rigs. The rate at which they caught fish was a bit slower, but they were still picking them up here and there.
Later in the afternoon, we switched back over to crankbaits. We were still targeting that 10-15' zone and the guys were still catching a few fish. I debated staying at that spot and hoping things would pick up again for the last few hours of the afternoon, but decided instead to try a different spot. That would prove to be my best decision of the day.
The last spot we fished wasn't really any different than all the others except in one respect. It held bigger fish and they were very active. Almost all of the fish Dewey and Kim caught over the last two hours were between 15 and 19" long.
Over the course of the day, these two guys caught 20 saugers, 31 walleyes, 2 crappies, 1 channel cat and 1 largemouth which Kim caught when his lure was hanging over the side of the boat. He set it there to net a fish for Dewey and that little bass came right up next to the boat and smacked it. Of those 51 walleyes and saugers, 13 were between 15 and 19" long. Dewey and Kim did end up keeping seven for a meal.
What an amazing two days of fishing it was. A total of 98 walleyes and sauger were brought into the boat. Twenty three of those were between 15 and 19" long. Nothing big, but lots of action!
Great to fish with you again Dewy and it was nice to meet and fish with you also Kim.
Hope all the rest of you got a chance to capitalize on the good bite. If not, better get out there and get them while there hot!
Good luck everyone!
Boog
