Stellar at Willard ... 3-21-15

[Old_Coot]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Well, I had an open day to hit the bay and boy was it a great day! No full moon, no low pressure, several days of constant barometric pressure, and it showed![/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]After putting out an invite to join me on Willard, jamesc88 (James) and his son Canyon and BSF (Brian) both sent me early PMs and so we made plans and went. It was great to meet new guys from BFT. They were a couple of great guys … and fast learners too![/size][/#800000][/font]

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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]We launched shortly after 7:00. Boy is that South marina shallow. Personally, I won't launch there again until/unless the lake rises. Like me, plenty of boats launched there today though.[/size][/#800000][/font]

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[size 4][font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]Our first stop was to go try casting some soft plastics along the N-West dike. No bites. [/#800000][/font][/size]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]So, we changed strategy and decided to troll east between the island and the south dike. Here is where Canyon boated his first ever walleye.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]But that was the only action we seen there. So we zipped over to Freeway bay for a shot there. No love there either. I was getting a little nervous that these guys just might not get a good look at a their first wiper.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Next location … tournament alley … BINGO!!!! From then until we left at 1:00, it was non-stop action.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Canyon fought his first wiper hard.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Then James landed a wiper.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Then Canyon landed another nice wiper.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Then Brian put this monster in the cooler.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]We hooked up doubles three times and even one triple![/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]One more time, Canyon shows us how it's done.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Just at quitting time I decided to snap a picture of SOME of the lures we used. The three along the top were our best producers.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Just before leaving, we ran into Wiperhunter2 and Ira. They had also found some wipers in that area.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]The water temps were 52°. When we left around 1:00, the waves were starting to kick up a bit.[/size][/#800000][/font]

[size 4][font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]I was pretty impressed how many of the 12 fish we caught were so darn big. [/#800000][/font][/size]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]We kept about 6 fish. When we got back to my house and filleted them, one of the big wipers had a crawfish in its stomach and one had a small shad.[/size][/#800000][/font]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]Other years, I have never really gotten too serious about fishing Willard before May. This year we are having stellar days two months early! Just CRAZY!!![/size][/#800000][/font]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 4]--- Coot ---[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[RILEYFISH]

atta boy Coot,
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[ratnest]

Looks like you had a great day after that slow start. Low and behold, your fishing partners were my former neighbors. Sure is a small world.

[mtncat1]

we had a really slow morning today also but started getting into fish were we boated 3 really big wipers and one smaller one when wiperhunter2 put us on your spot , where we picked up 6 more. all in all Willard continues to be a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.[cool]
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[DKStroutfitter]

Great report, Ralph.
By chance, did you locate the hump that I talked to you about?
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[BSF]

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[/size][/#000000][#000000][#000000][size 2]Thank you so much Ralph for extending an invite it was very generous of you. I had a blast, and can’t believe I almost stayed home to do yard work. It was a great day on the water with you, James, and Canyon.

If anyone out there ever gets a chance to fish with Old Coot (Ralph) jump on it, he is a great guy. The thing that impressed me most about him is, he doesn’t just take you fishing, he shows you how it’s done, and doesn’t hold anything back. Right from the time we launched the boat to the filleting of the fish. He is willing to share what he has learned over several years of fishing Willard. He also gave us a great tour of Willard, pointing out all the landmarks that you hear mentioned on this site. Oh and he really isn’t that old, and yes his lunch really is a spam and jalapeno sandwich.

And man can those Wipers put up a fight. Here are a few additional pictures from the trip.[/size][/#000000][/#000000]
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[albinotrout]

[bobhappy]Very nice, I love it!
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[HYDROFISH]

Very nice coot it's always fun helping new anglers out on years of tried and true methods. Great job
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[wiperhunter2]

Great post Ralph, and thanks for getting us on some active fish. We were only there a little over an hour and picked up 10 fish, including a 20" wiper and a 20" eye. The eye swallowed the lure and was bleeding pretty bad, so I kept it, later when I filleted it, I found it was a spawned out male, that was very surprising because I thought the spawn was just starting. I was thinking about the boat you had before this one, you would have had a hard time getting four people in that boat, I bet your glad you made the upgraded to this one[]. One more thing, I noticed in one of BSF's pics, the one of the back of your boat and motors, do you always travel full throttle with your kicker motor down or am I just seeing that at a bad angle and it is really up[:/]?
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[RockyRaab]

Having fished with Ralph, allow me to also say what a great host and teacher he is - especially for first-timers on a given body of water. A trip like that will leave memories for a very long time.

And if I ever go out with him again, I'm going to filch one of those sammiches.
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[mallardmann]

Nice report, looks like you had an awesome day! I was also there Saturday with my brother, Happytroller. He managed to limit out on Wiper and caught one that topped 5 pounds. I seem to catch 1 Wiper every time I go there. This trip mine topped 3 pounds. We picked up 4 walleye as well. We have only been there 3 times so we are just learning the lake and techniques. I don't know the names of bay locations very well, we just troll until we find fish. Where is tournament alley if you don't mind me asking? Is it your secret spot or a common landmark most people know about?
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[Old_Coot]

[quote mallardmann]Where is tournament alley if you don't mind me asking? Is it your secret spot or a common landmark most people know about?[/quote]

"Tournament Alley" is not a common landmark that most people know about. It is just a name I gave to a place that did me good during some tournaments years ago. It is actually kind of hard to find Tournament Alley without GPS coordinates. There is no real structure there that I know of so it baffles me as to why it holds fish there ... but it does. It is pretty much out in the middle of the lake and, as I said, hard to find. I'm not going to divulge the GPS coordinates here on BFT, but because it is so hard to find, I will show you approximately where it is on a map:

[inline Tournament-Alley-444.jpg]
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[Old_Coot]

[quote wiperhunter2]I noticed in one of BSF's pics, the one of the back of your boat and motors, do you always travel full throttle with your kicker motor down or am I just seeing that at a bad angle and it is really up[:/]?[/quote]

Very astute observation there Curt! My kicker had actually fell out of its locked upright position. I had to stop and re-secure it. Good eye.
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[wiperhunter2]

LOL, funny he took the pic right after it dropped. There have been times that I forgot to put my kicker motor up and notice my top end speed is greatly reduced, I start wondering, what is wrong with my main motor, I look back and figure it out pretty quick but for those moments before I look back, I always think, Oh no, something bad is happening[].
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[mallardmann]

Thanks Old Coot. I apologize for sending you a pm also. I wasn't sure if you wanted to share that info on the general board or not. Please feel free to disregard my pm since you answered my question here. I appreciate the help
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[Old_Coot]

No problem MM. Certainly no apology necessary. Our stuff just passed in the mail. I certainly don't mind PMs.
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[FishNCoach]

Looks like a great time..I have been waiting till later on in the season.. looks like I am going to start heading out now. Great pic.s and story
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