Sunday, March 16, 2014

Walleye Induced Headaches

Fishing Time:  2:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Weather:  Sunny, clear, T-60s
Moon Phase:  Full Moon
Location:  Utah Lake (Bird Island)
Bait:  Lipless crankbaits (small), plastic minnows (drop-shot), curly tail grubs
Who Went: Rick, Bobber John, Me
It’s March and this time of year you can beat your head against a wall waiting for warm weather or you can go chase walleye.  Either way they both produce the same results.  Headaches.  All the conditions were right tonight and Rick caught a couple in the same spot a week ago fishing with Rocky Mountain Angler, Tim Duke, so our confidence was high.  For a minute.  When we arrived we talked to a group of fisherman that had been there all day with no success.  Great.  We used the first hour to contour the ridge jetting off the southeast corner of Bird Island with my gps.
Then we recorded a fishing track using my new I-Pilot motor.  You can record a track and then with a push of a button it will re-run the same line by itself at any speed you want.  Sweet.
 
We started by casting up and down the ridge line working every inch on both sides for 3 hours.  We had a few possible missed hits or snags.  It’s hard to tell with how rocky it is out there.  We did manage to land a few rocks and some were sworn walleye all the way to the boat before the disappointing volcanic surfaced.  The rocks had as much fight as most walleye, so the misjudgments were valid.
Evening arrived and we began to see the walleye rolling on the surface doing there mating dance.  We spent some time chasing these surface fish, casting right on top of them, but they just kept doing their thing without a care in the world.  A couple of them looked to be very large females with massive bellies full of eggs.  I wish these fish would bite once in awhile. 

It was a beautiful night with a killer sunset, but as usual the walleye fishing was poor to skunky. 
I’ve seen multiple pictures of large walleye being caught this year so I’m sure I will be talked into going again. Until then I will rack it up to another walleye outing that left a bad taste in my mouth.  Same story different year.

I leave you with a video of the only thing we caught today…