05-16-2021, 12:55 PM
(05-16-2021, 12:12 AM)EyLayo Wrote: Finally found myself with some unplanned hours Friday afternoon. What a better way to fill the void than floating at Willard. Stiff winds almost kept me in the parking lot, but I decided to launch anyway. I picked up a well loved project boat several months ago with the intent of having a larger boat to fit the family and handle the rougher waters better than my last boat. Figured this would be a good first run and test. Battled the big rollers and white caps to the NW corner, killed the motor and just bobbed in the waves wherever the wind blew me. Put out a bouncer/ harness rig and was catching fish within 5 min. Walleye and wipers were split pretty evenly. I had a rattling crank on the other rod, but it never got touched. White with red eye harness caught nearly everything until I lost it to a toothy critter. In my rush to put gear in, I forgot to bring any landing gear. No net, pliers, lip grippers or anything useful. It was a real chore trying to get fish a board hanging over the edge with the boat rocking so bad. I felt lucky to land as many as I did before finally losing the lucky lure. Wish I could give details on temp, depth, speed etc, but I was fishing blind. Haven’t installed fish finder yet. Im convinced the walleye chop did it’s job last night. As a side note, when do the wiper finish their spawning habits? One was making a mess of the boat. Wish I had a wiper diaper.
The wiper false spawn is likely about over. I've seen them as shallow as a foot of water on May 1st, that was when the channel use to open and they were right there on the banks, just not sure how early they start though. How big were the wipers you caught?