Took my best friend from high school out to Tonka last night for my first trolling run of the season. The wind was only 5-10, but she made the 42 degree temps dig right through you. Fall is officially here in case you hadn’t noticed.
Our target areas were going to be channels. I’ve vowed to learn this lake since I’m only 10 minutes from the western basin. Not really knowing where to start, I picked up the map and found the channel closest to the landing. Jeff tied on a #12 firetiger husky jerk, I put on a large ripstick(shallow runner) in black/gold. We were barely in the mouth of the first channel when my rod was nearly jerked out of my hands. I didn’t expect this fish to be a walleye as hard as it hit and the way it surfaced so quickly. Once the fish was netted, it taped out at just over 20 inches.
We made several more passes in this channel, switch lures/colors a lot. Time to move, dug out the map and found a second channel. this was a very long channel, but it just didn’t seem real fishy. I decided to make a couple passes switching lures each pass. On our second to last pass my buddy nailed a 21″ fish. Now we have to make a few more passes. No more bites so we head back to the landing, just as my buddy was reeling in, a small pike nailed his #14 HJ.
The action wasn’t fast and furious, but I was able to learn a couple more spots to fish. One thing we noticed, darker colors caught the fish and big baits. I typically don’t keep fish this big, however both of the fish we kept last night had inhaled the baits so badly I was unable to free them without damaging the gill area on both fish. 
Here is a picture of Jeff holding our two fish for the night. Does anyone have a recommendation for freeing these fish when the hooks are embedded into the gill area?
