Petenwell is fun right now.

Well taking the day off today except for dusk,(back and driving rain). Guide customers stroll in tonight and are here pretty much for all of the next three weeks.

First day was 14 keepers …since then high 20 to 30+ keepers a day. If your gonna stroll over and do the drift and jig routine..I can’t promise you anything. Lots of 0-4 keepers a day per boat doing that. Took 4 days but I have the females pegged in two locations and catching mid 20″ s every day. Guy in a little better position,(you would have to be there to understand), has entered 29″+ into first place so far in the 3 week contest and also caught a 27 incher yesterday… 47″ musky was his thrill yesterday too. Like always in a situation like this,(on going tourney,celebrity tourney, Flw tourney,and WWA tourney all here in the next 4 weeks), I can’t share details but I promise I will. So the little tricks that are getting us from 0-4 fish to 30+ Keepers a day can be used by you in the future. For those of you that know my situation let me just say I am “Pain”stakingly reading the water/bite and ferreting out the EYEs. After last year and not being sure how much if ever I might fish again… let me just say…. I STILL HAVE MY THANG GOING ON AND DIDN’T LOSE A BEAT..AND YES THE CONCEITED, ARROGANT, AND CONFIDENT ME IS BACK. LOL

Anyway a quick update. Last two days,( SAT and SUN), have been very interesting … water has gone up 4-6 feet and flow has gone from a trickle to gates open and water spilling over the top of the dam. It does this at least every other year so fortunately I was prepared… so largest fish in last two days with guide clients were both 26ish with one actually shaped like a football and the other more normally shaped. Fished yesterday 11 hours with 23 fish in the 20s.. 5 hours today with 8 fish in the 20s. Pretty much steady keepers. Fortunately the under 15 inch fish seem to be in the minority right now. A different guy caught a 44 inch musky Sunday near us. About 4 miles from where the 47 incher was caught..

Back home for a day and 1/2 and then back to Pete. —–

Finally got a day off when guide customers changed from Sat-Sun-Mon to Sun Mon Tues

Same old same old still catching one or more fish from 23-26″ every day… big change is the higher flow has sucked all the 3-14 inch fish up into the neck of the river and although nearly 60 wallye caught yesterday…40 some where under 15 inches. I had a 3incher Milt in my hand yesterday… had no idea they matured that fast.

The verdict is out where we are in the spawn… some report of eggs laid almost a month ago( in that hot blast), some report empty females, some report females still firm with eggs. We have only kept 11 fish in 2 weeks all males and hurt by the hooks. Even if a female might be mortaly hurt,(only 2 we questioned), we have been putting them back. I should keep a small female and find out if there are eggs in there. It may sound silly not to know by feel and sight, but these fish … even the males are really bulked up with food… had a football 26 incher 5 days ago that was obviously full of eggs but many,(all), of the others are a toss up. Haven’t caught one single female that was dropping eggs in 2 weeks???

Just a quick update… lots of 3-12 inchers in the way right now but we are still getting good groups of keepers every day….. but we have gone 2 days now without a Walleye over 20 inches. Also catching some beautiful channel cats. If you have the patience to wade through the dinks you will be rewarded. My guess is that the Walleye League and WWA will have bigger weights this year because of the larger average size of keepers. I’m quite sure though that there will be some 0s and maybe many 1-2 3- fish teams. We probably already move about 8-10 times a day to stay on our keepers. Still averaging 14-16lbs. for 6 biggest keepers, but my guess is from here on out it will be 12lbs one day and 6lbs the next. And they are already in different places each day. Don’t think sitting in one place or area all day will be successful. I enjoy this challenge but my guess is tourney anglers will be a little stressed> LOL
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