Early Morning Blues

[rps]

Did my usual on the water before 5:30 this morning. Ran up to Roaring River where I caught a couple of nice Spook fish last week. Not today. Of the four fish I caught, the largest was about 12" and had one of those humpbacks you see from time to time.

After the sun was up I decided to walleye hunt. Around 9:00 I hooked one on the flat at the entrance to Roaring River. The fish hit a Cabela knock off of the reef runner deep diver running at 26 feet in water between 28 and 30 feet deep. When I got the fish to the boat it looked around 20 to 22 inches. My idiot net man pulled a rookie move and knocked the fish off the bait with the net. I did mention I was fishing alone, right?

I tried the flat across from the Roaring River entrance next - no joy. I also tried the timber bluff just upstream from Eagle Rock and the flat point opposite it. Nothing.

Next I trolled the flat opposite Jolms Branch, the one near the high line downstream from Fletchers. I landed a 17' fish from an identical depth set up. Two more passes netted nothing so I moved to the other side of the channel and trolled the timber edge. I finally hooked and landed a legal walleye there - 23".

By then I was tired of fighting the wind, fishing my hat out of the lake, and I was out of Diet Coke. Went in and found a BPro box in my mail box. Look at my new entry in the redfin thread.

[Hunter91]

RPS,

I was up your way yesterday. I caught about 10 bass on dropshot and then went trolling. Caught one 17in walleye about 33ft on reefrunner and one 14in crappie on shad rap.

[powerdive]

Hey rps and H91, seems like the walleyes are still kinda scattered. Are you seeing any more shad starting to collect in your spots yet? Gotta start happening soon...then maybe we'll find more consistent fishing.

[rps]

I scoped numerous small shad schools while trolling but no real balls of baitfish. Most of the balls of baitfish I have scoped in the last week have been in shallower locations such as 18' flats up in Roaring River and above Holiday Island near Beaver. As I have been trolling, especially on clean flats where you can "see," I have not seen the fish I have been catching. My impression is that they are roaming and not staying in one place to ambush the baitfish. I think the reason I have been able to catch a few is that I have a small but fairly good collection of spots I try and I am persistent.

[Hunter91]

the one spot we caught our short walleye from had several large balls of shad in about 25-30ft. Didn't see any other big groups of big shad. The bass we caught were puking up small shad though.

[rps]

I'm headed out in the morning, probably down river toward Eagle Rock. I will keep an eye on the graph and report all I notice.

[Hunter91]

Wished I had paid attention earlier last night and I would have had an eye out for you RPS. I was in the area this morning and notice several big pods of baitfish less than 30ft. even a little early morning schooling. I think the bass were small though. No walleye luck for me today but did catch several bass on dropshot.