Tournament News Powered By Lake Drive Marine
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by Daniel Quade
(Provided by PRADCO lures)
Last Chance WalleyesTiming is everything in life, and nowhere is this truer than in walleye fishing. Hover over a hot reef during a suicide bite and hungry ’eyes make you a hero. Try the same tactics after a crushing cold front, however, and you’ll plummet from the penthouse to the outhouse.
This explains why veteran guides—who get paid to put clients on fish no matter the conditions—use timing to their favor whenever possible. Knowing where active fish gather, when, makes a huge difference in their catches. For longtime guide Jon Thelen, whose territory includes Minnesota’s storied Mille Lacs Lake, the mid- to late fall time frame offers some of the season’s finest and most consistent patterns.
“People put their boats away way too early,” he says, lamenting the lines of shrink-wrapped hulls decorating marine dealers’ lots come mid-October. “They’re missing out on some of the best walleye fishing of the year.”
What makes this period so special, he says, is walleyes are so dependent on Mother Nature—particularly water temperature and wind direction—that profiling their behavior becomes infinitely easier than during other times of year.
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(Provided by Indiana DNR)
Fishing at LaPorte’s Pine Lake received a boost this month as the DNR stocked 4,018 walleye advanced fingerlings there.
The walleyes were reared by inmates at Terre Haute’s Federal Correctional Complex as part of a partnership between the DNR and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The same facility grows catfish for the Go FishIN in the City program, a program to enhance fishing opportunities in Indiana’s urban areas.
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By Louie Stout
Fingerlings in netWhen Barry Ukele and a handful of others started the Michiana Walleye Association in 1993, they shared a dream of consistently catching keeper walleyes from the St. Joseph River.
They launched a stocking program with help from the DNR, and while the river has produced decent walleye fishing, keeper-size fish have been scarce.
Until this year.
“We’ve always been able to catch 6 or 8 sub-legal and maybe one legal fish (15-plus inches),” noted Ukele. “But this season has been different. One week this summer, I was catching 8 to 10 keepers and 6 non-keepers. It’s been fantastic all year.”
The difference? River biologist Neil Ledet credits the cooperative efforts with the club to stock larger fish in fewer numbers. The survival is much better as the bigger walleyes survive the winter better and grow faster.
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By Nathan Shore
(Provided by PRADCO Lures)
Match The Migration For More WalleyesThe most important factor in any walleye presentation isn’t the lure, technique, trolling speed or line size. All those things can be as important as the color of your boat.
Like the way to a man’s heart, the way to walleyes is through their stomachs, and that means that your knowledge of the local baitfish can be the most important factor to catching lots of walleyes.
Jonny Petrowske is one man who knows baitfish better than you. He’s a Jack-of –all-trades, carving a life out of the Northwoods by running resorts, renting fish houses and plowing roads. He’s a fishing guide, too, and a darn good one, but he might say he wears his most important hat when gathering bait for clients and local shops. Baitfish habits, Petrowske claims, comprise the most important information a fisherman can own.