Willard...Walleye, Wipers, and Whiskers

[Plug-puller]

It has been a while since my last post, but unfortunately it has also been a while since I last went fishing. Had a chance to get out for a morning of fishing on the the 4th and decided to spend it at Willard. Took a buddy, his son, and another friend's son along with me and we were hoping to get into some fast action. Launched from the North marina at around 6:30 and headed to the area I had planned to start the day. We meant business, so I had it set up so we could fish with 6 rods. 2 with planer boards out to the sides, 2 with spinner rigs and crawler harnesses on bottom bouncers, and 2 long line trolling rods directly behind us. I was still in the process of getting the lines out when we had our first take down of the day. It turned out to be a small, 14 inch, wiper. A few minutes later we landed a 15 inch walleye and about 10 minutes after that a 16 inch catfish. It was looking to be a great day. We had caught 3 fish and 3 species all before 7:00. We made another pass through that area and picked up a few more small walleye and another cat. I was hoping to get into some big fish so we decided to make a move. It turned out to be a good move because about 5 minutes after the move, I saw a little tap on my rod tip. I picked up the rod and when I felt another tap I set the hook and knew immediately I had a good fish. Several minutes later we netted a 24 inch Walleye that weighed just under 5 lbs. That turned out to be the big fish of the day and unfortunately the only one I could coax out of that school.

We moved several more times and found schools of smaller wipers and walleye and had plenty of action and fun with them, but never found the really big wipers. Most of the walleye we caught were in the 13" to 15" range, with a couple of 18's and a 24. Although they weren't real big, they gave us plenty of action. We almost couldn't keep them off the hook at times. We ended up keeping about a dozen and releasing even more than that. To be honest, I've never caught a walleye smaller than 18" out of Willard, so I think it's good to see that 13"-15" year class so abundant.

All in all, a pretty good day on the water. We ended up catching 4 wipers, 3 cats, and at least a couple dozen walleye. Just before 1:00 we had a quadruple take down and landed 3 of the 4 fish. We thought that would be a good note to end on and called it a day. After reading Fishinfool's report, I'm thinking maybe we should have stayed a bit longer.[:p]
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[fish_fear_me2]

Sounds like a great trip. Good job on the eyes. What were you getting them on
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[Plug-puller]

Thanks. I started the day running various lure types and colors, to see what the fish preferred. 1 lipless rattling crank, 1 wally diver, 1 X-rap deep, 1 X-rap shad, and 2 spinner rigs with crawler harnesses. The majority of fish came on the spinner and worm combo, but the wally diver and X-rap shad also produced fairly well.

In fact the bite was good enough that I never took the chance to try out some new lures that I purchased recently. Once I get the chance, I'll let you know what they are and how they worked.

Coincidentally, all the bigger fish were caught on minnow style baits.[]
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[BigIceHole]

I was just wondering what speed you where trolling. I was told to troll really slow with bottom bouncers and crawer/spinner rigs. But if you troll slow how do you get the action on your raps?
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[CoyoteSpinner]

That's a great post. I have GOT to get me down there! This "spring" bite is kicking!! Sounds like you had all grounds covered. Bet you looked like quite the spiders nest of lines with all them offerings (beware the jet-skiers!).

Good variety. Fun action for the kids - sounds like. Gotta love that 'chaos' of multiple hookups. Hey - never bad to quit while you're ahead. (depending on the kids stamina)

[Plug-puller]

I know everyone tells you to troll real slow with spinner rigs, but my wife tells me I'm not a very good listener. Truth is, I do troll a bit slower if I'm strictly targeting walleye in water deeper then about 12 - 15 feet. Most of the time though, I am trying to find multiple species at Willard and so I troll a bit faster. Most of the time I'm not truly bouncing bottom either. Maybe this is a secret, but spinner rigs can work just as well in the middle of the water column as they do right off the bottom. I just prefer to use bottom bouncers to trolling sinkers so I can move in and out of shallow water without having to re-rig. I like to start out trolling at anywhere from 1.5 to 2.2 mph and then adjust based on which rods get bit and by what type of fish I'm getting. I will fish spinners up to about 2.5 mph, but faster than that and I switch to minnow style baits.
I put a little action into my raps by making turns or by reeling a bit of line in from time to time. If i get hits when speeding up the baits, I then up my boat speed. Hope this helps.
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[Plug-puller]

Thanks, Coyote. You do need to get there while the bite is on. I'm just hoping I can get back there before it slows. I'm sure we were a sight to see with all the lines going every which way, but it paid off for us. It did take me a while to perfect the 6 rod trolling and the boat control necessary to make it work, but I use it quite a bit now.

Truth be told, the jet skiers did force us out of a couple of good spots. We moved because I was afraid they were going to take my lures for a ride with them.

The boys never got bored and caught plenty of fish. I think they may have even learned a thing or two. At least I can hope they did. It was a good day.
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