Night fish for the week of 4-6-09 through 4-9-09
I missed out on a great night of fishing last Monday evening when I stayed home to, hopefully, watch Michigan State knock off the top ranked team from the ACC in the championship game of the NCAA basketball tournament. That was a big mistake as Jeremy & Jack Williams hit the river and had a great night fishing. They caught quite a few decent walleyes and some of the the biggest muskies of the year showed up as well. I don't remember the exact numbers but I do know that I was kicking myself after hearing about it from them. As always though, the biggest walleye got away just in the nick of time. Jeremy claims it may have gone 30" but there is no way of knowing that now. Jack was the unlucky angler who had it on briefly only to lose it just a few feet from where he was standing in the water. Jack did land two other decent walleyes, one that went 23" & another that went 25" long.
Jeremy on the other hand caught some great muskies. All of them were returned to the river unharmed and ready to do battle with another lucky angler later this year. The biggest went 47" and broke his rapala in two pieces.
I hit the river by myself on Tuesday and did okay on average size walleyes. Tom Meyer joined me on Wednesday and he landed a very fat 25" female walleye right off the bat but after that, the only other decent fish we had was a muskie that I caught. This fish was just to mean to get a measurement and instead of trying to force the issue, we decided it was best to just unhook the ornery critter and send her on her way before I got stuck with one of the hooks. Tom caught several other walleyes, one of which was around the 21" but I didn't catch anything else at all.
On Thursday, the only fish I caught was my best walleye of the spring. She was spawned out and stretched the tape at 27" long. If I only caught one fish a night and I knew it would be a walleye over 25" long, I would be more than happy to pull on my neoprene waders and head out for the river.
My best baits this week have pretty much stayed the same. Rapala's like the F-11, #8 & #10 husky jerks & countdowns have been the mainstay or our night fishing excursions for years. We have been using them for as long as I can remember. We didn't pull these lures out of our tackle boxes to target muskies, it's more like the muskies decided to target us and what ever we threw at them. When I pull on my neoprene waders and head out the door each night, my primary target has always been and will always be walleyes. Preferably, big walleyes! I would also like to point out that we don't keep any of the fish we catch. Tom Meyer & I have been releasing all the fish we catch at night for many, many years. Putting fillets in the freezer is "not" why we do this!
I have heard several theories as to why the muskies are hear in large numbers this spring. I'm not sure if anyone knows for sure why they showed up this year but it does appear to me as though they are targeting the walleyes as they're primary food source. In my opinion, the most likely reason they showed up is because they didn't have a good food source elsewhere and they just went where they found the best opportunities to feed readily.
