Head 2 Head Walleye Series

It is plenty big enough already. Don’t need more boats adding to an artificial hook mortality.

I was lucky enough to be a marshal for this event on Monday and Tuesday. All the guys I talked to were really nice and willing to answer any questions you had about fishing. You can sure learn a lot sitting in the boat for 5 hours with a pro. Looking forward to doing it again on pool 2.

rjthehunter wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Justin Laack wrote:</div>
UNREAL!!! These guys sure are showcasing that the mille lacs walleye population is hurting (insert sarcasm). Okada caught 27 fish today, for 5 hours of fishing he averaged boating an eye every 11 minutes! If he would have stayed hooked up on the ones he lost, that would probably have dropped it to a fish every 8 minutes.

Crazy isn’t it? All on artificials too. All the fish look healthy and well fed. Last weekend when I was out there i caught a dzn in 3 hours. Again all artificials, no need for live bait out there!

Maybe someday it will become a big walleye destination if they let us keep a few fish.

It has been for 3 decades. Those fish are not well fed. Go fish the river and see the difference of a well fed fishery. Pretty obvious there is a lack of forage in that lake. Wait until the P2 tournament and you will see how thick a 20″ eye should be.

You lost me at comparing river fish to lake fish.

Ripjiggen wrote:

You lost me at comparing river fish to lake fish.

Not best comparison…..still skinnier than a LOW or UPRL fish.

They are obviously trying to be politically correct, but they have slipped a few times on how skinny some of those fish look. What I noticed as the week has gone on is they frequency of which the say “That is a healthy fish”, early in the week it was maybe a few times in the entire live stream, yesterday it was almost every fish. Makes a guy wonder if someone got in their ear?!?!?

One of the hosts made a comment early in the week about catching a lot of 18″-19″ Walleye and questioning if they would meet the 2 Lb. minimum to count. The chart below is a biology chart for what an average Walleye should weigh by length. The other thing I noticed on the BIG fish, 27″+, the guys are guessing over 5 Lb’s and they are coming in at 4 Lb’s something. By the chart, they should be +8 Lb’s.

14 in 1.01 lb
15 in 1.25 lb
16 in 1.54 lb
17 in 1.87 lb
18 in 2.24 lb
19 in 2.66 lb
20 in 3.13 lb
21 in 3.65 lb
22 in 4.24 lb
23 in 4.88 lb
24 in 5.59 lb
25 in 6.36 lb
26 in 7.20 lb
27 in 8.12 lb
28 in 9.12 lb
29 in 10.20 lb

With both H2H and AIM tournaments going on at the same time, maybe they can compare the results of the weights and lengths of the fish. AIM uses length to guesstimate the weight. The first day leader for AIM has 38.5# of fish for a guesstimated 7.7# average. The biggest fish actually weighed during the H2H tourney has been around 5.5#. That’s a pretty big difference. The fish that were caught in the boats I was in were definitely skinny.

Oh lord here we go again. First off Aim weight ratios are extremely high. Higher than MTT and higher than any tournament I have been in so not a great comparison either. Anyone that has fished an AIM event will tell you the same.
For example MTT has a weight of 9 lbs for a 29in walleye. AIM that same fish is over ten lbs. I can not tell you how many 29in walleyes I have caught in my life but only 2 have been over ten lbs and they were on lake Winnipeg where those fish will make pool 4 fish look skinny.

Todd I never seen them measure a fish all tournament. Maybe I missed that part.

The fish are healthy right now. There is a lot of forage in the system.
Trust me when I say I fished the lake a lot over the years and can show you fish that were unhealthy compared to now.
I can show you fish this fall that will be plenty plump and fat. Closer to a river walleye but again terrible comparison to compare river fish to lake fish. For just about any species for that matter.

Will the forage last or will a low 20’s fish that has to constantly eat have enough forage forever. That remains to be seen.

Just like any lake this lake cycles. So does the food sources. This past fall I saw one of the largest perch hatches that I have seen in ten years.
Just like any lake their are some eyes that look skinnier than others. The vast vast majority of the walleyes look like they always have on mille lacs.

But as an example, I will give you it was exceptionally skinny, not the average, but Max just caught a 24″ that weighted only 3 Lb’s. Its on video.

This whole skinny fish debate is laughable. Last fall everyone was talking about too much food in the lake slowing down the bite….
Now all the fish are starving again??
You can’t compare fish from other systems either. Every ecosystem is different. Mille lacs is not Pool 2, LOTW, or Red Lake.
I’ve been out there about a dozen times a summer the last 6 years and haven’t noticed any change in the fish’s appearance or perceived health. The only change I’ve noticed is less large fish the last two years. They’re are skinny fish yes, but also fat healthy fish. Not every human is the same body shape, why do fish need to be?
The fish are at their lowest weight from spawning until mid summer usually, so keep that in mind too. According to some, these fish have been starving to death for years, it’s amazing they’re still alive.

I’m thoroughly enjoying this tournament series. So much more fun to watch than NWT highlight videos.

toddrun wrote:

They are obviously trying to be politically correct, but they have slipped a few times on how skinny some of those fish look. What I noticed as the week has gone on is they frequency of which the say “That is a healthy fish”, early in the week it was maybe a few times in the entire live stream, yesterday it was almost every fish. Makes a guy wonder if someone got in their ear?!?!?

One of the hosts made a comment early in the week about catching a lot of 18″-19″ <em class=”ido-tag-em”>Walleye and questioning if they would meet the 2 Lb. minimum to count. The chart below is a biology chart for what an average Walleye should weigh by length. The other thing I noticed on the BIG fish, 27″+, the guys are guessing over 5 Lb’s and they are coming in at 4 Lb’s something. By the chart, they should be +8 Lb’s.

14 in 1.01 lb
15 in 1.25 lb
16 in 1.54 lb
17 in 1.87 lb
18 in 2.24 lb
19 in 2.66 lb
20 in 3.13 lb
21 in 3.65 lb
22 in 4.24 lb
23 in 4.88 lb
24 in 5.59 lb
25 in 6.36 lb
26 in 7.20 lb
27 in 8.12 lb
28 in 9.12 lb
29 in 10.20 lb

These charts are a guess at best. You could find 10 different charts showing 10 different weight to length ratios.
Are all 6ft tall people the same weight?

A long, long time ago, I measured the length and weight of several walleye from Pool 3. Most of the fish were caught in the summers of 1996 and 1997.

Here’s the my length vs. weight compares to the “chart” As one can see, all of my fish (the red dots) are lighter than the charts weight for equal length fish.

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Back to the actual subject of the thread.

Pretty dramatic ending to the tourney with Blosser coming back and beating Okada by one fish.

Congratulations to Josh Blosser! Fished together on GB back in FLW days. Couldn’t happen to a better human being!

Okada – amazing 5 days of fishing!

Must’ve been a physically grueling event. Okada pretty much looked dazed and confused at the end yesterday. I thought he might throw up.

Off to the store to buy all the electric blue grubs off the shelf!

Best walleye tournament I’ve ever watched – hands down.

Todd You would be hard pressed to find any walleye in a lake this time of year that weighed over 8 lbs at 27inches. Hell most any time of the year. Just saying. As I said before the AIM chart is not accurate at all and is why they put up larger on numbers in their tournament than say MTT that have been on the same weekend in years past. It is always a good thing for a tournament to promote larger lb bags. If you are not using length and girth you can make the scale whatever you want.

Grubson thank you for some common sense and not being a biologist from looking at photos on the net. The large fish of pass years have since cycled out of the system. They were old. Still some large fish just not the majority of the population like it was five years ago. Will be similar in the next five years however. The 2013 class is growing exceptionally well.

Interesting graph Boone. Thanks for sharing.

That had to be a grind for those guys with the heat all week and the conditions they had. Was really pulling for Joe early on as he seemed so excited to be out there. 5 days in this heat on any lake is a grind.
Cool event and format. Hope they come back to the pond again.

Hope they come back in the fall so we can see the weights go up.🤔

Those poor fish so hungry and these H2H guys tricking them with fake leeches and blue worms.😒The audacity!

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. Last year they addressed the snagging issue and I think they have really created something with some lasting power. I love having it on in the background.

That said, IMO, they need to go to a 1lb minimum if they are going to do it by weight. I feel like one of the reasons they went 2lbs was because of the god awful scales they were using. they had so many issues even weighing 2-3lb fish, i’m assuming 1lb fish would of had wild issues.

obviously walleye fishing is different than bass fishing but when i watch MLF, its a blast watching kvd find a school of 1-2lbers and put the hammer down on them. I feel like especially in the river matches (not early detroit river mind you) these guys have to hog hunt and it kind of makes for thumb twiddling television.

Also i will contend that the rule to move to dinkfest just seems like a needless complication of the rules. and the term “dinkfest” doesn’t really instill a feeling of legitimacy to whole circuit.