My fishing partner Fred Foltz and I fished the Rose Placzek tournament over the weekend. I think we’ve only missed this tournament once since 2000. Each year we seem to do better. I wish we would have taken a few pictures, but we were so busy we didn’t even think of it.
This year had to be the best bite I’ve ever had out there. I can’t tell you how many times we had doubles and triples going on. The average size walleye was about 16″ and the 18″ keepers were hard to come by. Before the tournament was finished I’d guess we boated at least 50 fish.
We kept things pretty simple again this year. We stuck with trolling night crawlers on a floating jig head. I rigged a gum drop floater by Northland Tackle with a 4 foot leader behind a 1/2 oz lindy sinker. I stuck with a green/yellow/orange jig and Fred used an orange/yellow jig. The orange/ yellow seemed pretty hot early and later the green/yellow/orange turned on. Both colors produced all day. We fished the west bank of the arm leading back to trail 6/8 all day. Most of the fish we caught were on points in about 15 to 20 feet of water. Two of our keepers (about 20″ each) came on the same point about 18 feet deep. One of the points had a sweet spot with a small hump off shore and brush around it. We would catch a fish or two each pass. Our largest walleye (22″) came off the end of one of the new jetties near trail 8. With the wind blown current flowing around the end of the jetty I thought it might hold some fish so we trolled just off the end of the jetty when it hit. We made multiple passes but couldn’t get anymore bites. We had our 3 keepers by 11:30. Around noon we switched up for a bit and threw some crank baits around some of the shallow vegetation back in trail 6. For the past couple years we have tried this with the disappointment of losing a trophy fish. I was using a Castaic 3 1/2 threadfin shad. These baits have a solid head and a soft plastic body and swim with a very lifelike motion. They are very touchy and require tuning prior to each use. Believe it or not I tied on the bait and dropped it over the edge of the boat to begin checking to see if it would swim straight. I gave it two quick jerks when out of no where what looked to be a 30 or so inch walleye hammered it. We were in about 3 foot of water when it struck the bait on the surface less than 2 foot from the edge of the boat. It was a quick battle. I didn’t hear the drag releasing any line but, it was pretty loose and those small fish we caught while trolling took a little drag. This fish short lined me and Fred no sooner jump to the front with the net when my line snapped. I don’t know if it broke or was cut. It must have taken 5 minutes to tie a new one on I was shaking so bad. We fish for about an hour back there with no other bites. To finish out the day we headed back out and trolled the west bank again.
An adjustment we made during the day was to troll with half a worm. After making this switch we stopped missing so many bites. One thing I noticed in the past as well as this weekend was how well a bass carolina rigged worked. I snagged and broke off one rig and I had a spare rod rigged with this other weight. Both rods I was holding were rigged identically except for the weight. I’d bet the bass weight out fished the other 4 to 1. I don’t know if it was the rattling beads or what. I know they made Lindy weights with rattles, but I didn’t see any this year.
Overall it was the best day I’ve ever had on Sherman. Although the size of the fish wasn’t the best, but the solid action all day long wore us out. This year we finished 9th with 7.40 pounds. I believe the winning team came in with just under 12 pounds.
You should think about fishing a couple more of the NWT tournaments this year. 
The number of fish being caught up there right now is unbelievable. 
This is our 4th year fishing the NWT tournaments and we have always zeroed the first tournament. 
