5-19 Wind Report

[kjackson]

Launched late--nine-ish--at 12 bridge and started heading up toward Beaver Shores. Water was 65, and the wind was perhaps 15 or so. Marked a lot of fish up high but no biters.

Trolled up to the big flat and marked fish in several locations but staying on them was a problem with the wind. Gave up on the flat and headed toward the windward bank for a quick scout. Hooked a couple of small bass, but the issue was staying off the beach in rolling two-footers. decided to head back under the bridge and get in the lee on the other side of the point. Trolled with blank results for a bit and then decided it was time to bass fish. Spent a couple of hours there with no spectacular results--a couple of smallish smallmouth, one decent largemouth and a few small ones. The fish were really active, but we didn't have bass gear with us, or at least what I might have used.

The wind shifted a bit, and we thought we might find a lee back off Beaver Shores. The wind did shift but now was blowing into the shore on the big flat instead of along it. Trolled again as boat control was a problem what with breaking rollers pushing us around anytime we lost headway. There was a decent mudline forming, and the fish should have moved up there, but we couldn't find much in the way of biters. We did catch a fat 20-inch walleye and hooked a good largemouth (saw it jump a couple of times) --maybe three or four pounds--that came off at the boat. What was strange was that this last fish or another tried to slam the crankbait again at boat side after the other fish popped off. I almost hooked it on a muskie figure-eight move, but it didn't quite take. This second fish also looked a bit gray from what I saw, so I'm thinking it may have been a white that followed the largemouth up.

Can't stress enough about how strong the wind was. Normally, in my boat, I cannot get trolling speed below 2.1 using my two-stroke. Fishing into the wind, I could slow to 0.4, which would have been fine if I could have controlled the boat. However, I had to maintain at least 1.8 mph to have control. Waves at times approached two feet in height and were breaking. We took a lot of spray over the side when idling; fortunately, it was warm... I'm thinking that if I could have found a decent spot, I should have anchored the boat, and then spent some time casting into the mudline. I also could have thrown out a drift sock and slowly cast to the mud, but I doubt I had one large enough to handle the wind yesterday.

We loaded up at 5:00. It was an interesting day. When my buddy caught that 'eye, the dime dropped. I'm pretty confident that walleye fishing on Beaver is close enough to the walleye fishing I used to do in the Columbia system so that now all I have to do is find the spots I need to fish. For me, that is a big change.

[Quillback]

It was certainly windy yesterday. But sounds like you guys had a decent day, considering.

[wc1063]

Great report, thank you!!

[J-Doc]

Definately a good report. Glad you figured out the walleye. Fishing in windy conditions and trolling can be tough on that lake for sure. They will bite if it's early though. Once it's been howling good, they tend to shut down to to boat traffic and wind. My experience anyway. In mid week, it might be different.

[kwall]

The fisheries dept. folks are doing a fabulous job with the walleye on Beaver -- my bet is it will become as good as Bull Shoals one day