05-27-2020, 03:25 PM
With the nice weather yesterday, the temperature of the water came up at Willard and we got into some fish. We launched about 10:30 and had everything tied up and fishing by about 11:00.
We started hot with two wipers in the boat as not quite a double, but close. We managed another one on each pass through Freeway Bay. As we'd get to one side of the bay, we'd go over a depression in the bottom of the reservoir and catch catfish on a Rapala style shad rap. I've never caught catfish on a Rapala style lure. But, there's a first for everything I guess. They were coming up and hitting the lure at about 10' deep is my guess. I never saw them as that kind of predator.
On one pass, we had a rod go down and this particular rod is one of my custom downrigger rods for silver salmon. It was pinned for a little bit while a fish took a run. Then my avet sx was dragging out on about 3/4 drag setting as we worked the fish. I had to cut the throttle to gain line back on him. It was a fight that lasted at least a couple of minutes before a 21" wiper hit the floor in the boat. He got both trebles and managed to snap the back of the lure off and break the back hook out of the lure. I haven't had too many fish break the lure from hitting it that hard.
We caught a couple crappie, lost one at the boat, and lost another wiper at the boat that would have finished our limits. My buddy had never caught a walleye so we went to try walleye fishing for a while, with no luck. But it was a fun day to be out and it's always nice to crush a big wiper.
![[Image: IMG-5545.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/H28QVMD/IMG-5545.jpg)
We started hot with two wipers in the boat as not quite a double, but close. We managed another one on each pass through Freeway Bay. As we'd get to one side of the bay, we'd go over a depression in the bottom of the reservoir and catch catfish on a Rapala style shad rap. I've never caught catfish on a Rapala style lure. But, there's a first for everything I guess. They were coming up and hitting the lure at about 10' deep is my guess. I never saw them as that kind of predator.
On one pass, we had a rod go down and this particular rod is one of my custom downrigger rods for silver salmon. It was pinned for a little bit while a fish took a run. Then my avet sx was dragging out on about 3/4 drag setting as we worked the fish. I had to cut the throttle to gain line back on him. It was a fight that lasted at least a couple of minutes before a 21" wiper hit the floor in the boat. He got both trebles and managed to snap the back of the lure off and break the back hook out of the lure. I haven't had too many fish break the lure from hitting it that hard.
We caught a couple crappie, lost one at the boat, and lost another wiper at the boat that would have finished our limits. My buddy had never caught a walleye so we went to try walleye fishing for a while, with no luck. But it was a fun day to be out and it's always nice to crush a big wiper.