Pool 4 Walleye Report 4-25-06

I made it down to Pool 4 for the MTT tournament this past weekend, and what a weekend it was! My fishing partner and father-in-law, Ron, met me at Everts Resort on Friday so we could do a little pre-fishing. I had two spots that I wanted to prefish for sure. The first spot produced a 26 ½ incher for me, and the second spot produced Ron’s personal best to date pictured here, a 28 incher! Read on to see how the weekend played out.

Friday morning before Ron could make it down, Dean from Everts Resort and I went to spot #1. We fished for half an hour or so with no luck. Then he told me to tie on a Bucktail Wayne “Tournament Series” hair jig. Well within a few casts, this beautiful 26 incher came to the boat……not without a little fiasco first. Since we hadn’t put our handle on our net yet, and with all the excitement of the fish, of course the handle wouldn’t go together, so in what I’m sure appeared to be the first time we have ever netted a fish, Dean just scooped it up using the hoop only. I was happy to get the fish in the boat, and even happier to give Vandy (Reef-Runner), who was fishing nearby a good laugh to start his day off!

OK, time to move on. There must be a few fish here I thought. Dean and I headed down in the lake a ways to try and catch a fish or two on #5 shads in some proven locations. The fish did not want anything to do with our offerings and as we were trolling, Ron called and said I’m at the resort, “Come get me”. So back to the resort we went to pick up Ron, with a new game plan. Off to “Spot #2”. Well I had just gotten the boat set and Ron was on his third cast when all of a sudden he sets the hook. Dean said, in that tone of voice that you like to hear when looking for big fish, “That’s a good fish”! Well a minute or two later this 28 incher comes to the boat. (pictured above too). She hit a “Black Magic” hair jig. So here we are, having fished our two “spots” for a very short amount of time and have two very respectable fish in the boat. Game on for the weekend right? Wrong.

Day one Ron and I head to our first spot and cast hairjigs, ringworms, jig-minnow combinations and nothing is working. After a few hours we head back upstream to our #2 spot and same story. We decided to go back to #1 spot for the rest of the day and Ron managed to pull a 3.77 lber off of it. The only fish we weighed that day. Day two, without much to go on, we decided to head back to the same #1 spot. After striking out there with short fish and junk fish, we went trolling just trying to put a fish in the boat. Nothing. So, back to what I “know” has to have fish on it, spot #1! At 2:00 pm Ron sticks a 6.11 lber on the Tournament Series hairjig again! Ok now we’re back in the game! One more of those and we have a respectable weight. Fifteen minutes later with my jig in the same location, I get this awesome hit, set the hook and say get the net! My eight pound walleye ended up being about a 6-7 lb sheepie!!! Man do they feel like a Walleye! Five minutes later, I get another hit, same result. 4-5 lb sheepie. So close, yet so far away! I can’t complain, Ron got the two biggest walleye of his life and we had a great time fishing the tournament together! That’s what it’s all about. So what did catch fish for others? A little bit of everything. 3-waying bait seemed to do pretty well. Pulling lead core worked along with jigging the current seams. The fish are in that post spawn “on the move” stage! Here today gone tomorrow kind of thing. I heard of fish being caught literally from the top of the pool to the bottom of the pool. Look for that shad rap bite to really pick up as the water warms up a few more degrees. Good fishing to all. Steve Vick.