Upper White Saturday Report

[rps]

I was anxious to try out the wake baits I bought and modified so I went out even though it was Saturday. The weather gods sent in the clouds and wind around 6:30. This delayed and reduced the boaters and jetski maniacs. I stayed out until noon.

From 8:00 on I was slow trolling for walleyes. I was graphing hooks in the 25 to 30 foot range so I used a large Cabelas Walleye Runner on 120 feet of superline. The trolling bible says that meant the baits were running at 26 feet. I caught three keeper walleye and one hammer handle. The fish came out of treetops on the bluffs I have described before. Two were ordinary keepers of 19' but the third was 27.5 inches and weighed 8 pounds. Best walleye this year for me.

Just before I came in two things happened in short order. I hooked a fish that pulled harder than the 8 pound walleye. My drag was singing! It pulled off and left a small scale on the point of one treble. I would like to pretend it was a walleye or smallmouth and wasn't foul hooked. While I was still grumbling and getting ready to put the bait back out, a ski boat came by and the female skier did that cutback thing to throw water in my boat. She was so close I probably could have slapped her backside. I quit and went in.

I won't ask you to speculate on what the boat driver and she were thinking. Obviously they weren't, as I was on the very edge of a drowned forrest that has stumps lurking two inches under water right now. What I don't get is the why. Where is the fun in throwing water on a grumpy old man you don't even know?

[Danoinark]

Very nice report rps. Sounds like a great morning on the lake. Maybe next time do pop her on the backside and she very well may have second thoughts the next time they intend to harrass one of us geezers...

[Sam]

I hooked a fish that pulled harder than the 8 pound walleye. My drag was singing!

The last time that happened to me while trolling for walleyes, it was on Bull Shoals a couple of years ago. I spent 20 minutes chasing the fish with the trolling motor and just trying to hang on. I knew it had to be my all-time biggest walleye.

When I got it in, it turned out to be the biggest flathead catfish I've ever caught - not foul-hooked, it bit the plug. If you had a scale on your hook it wasn't a catfish - but when you're trolling you just never know what you'll get ahold of.

[Gary Lange]

I fought a big Carp up on Stockton Lake on year I hooked while trolling a dropoff for Walleye. I thought I had a good Walleye on til I got it in and found out it was a Carp. I also hook another Carp on the Fox River in Illinois one Winter Morning while fishing and Eddie for Smallmouths. I was sure I had a 4-5 pound Smallie on til I got it up to me. What a disappointment that was to be standing in that cold water wading the river and catching that. He wasn't foul hooked either he had the 1/8oz. jig and twister in his upper lip.

[rps]

While fishing for legitimate species I have been surprised a number of times. One Spring on Tenkiller I caught a 16 pound flathead. I've hooked spoonbill while throwing striper flies below Keystone. I caught a gar on a top water earlier this year - not my first accidental gar but my first on a top water. Other surprises include carp, drum, buffalo, herring, and snakes. I hate snakes.