Sneaking walleyes out of weeds

Sneaking walleyes out of weeds

Meaty Urologists are predicting a warming trend beginning today and running at least through the weekend. Early voting is possible now, but you can only exercise this right through tomorrow.

We live in the most uncertain times I’ve experienced in nearly 7 decades on the planet. God alone knows what will happen. Ronald Reagan noted our Republic is only one generation away from losing it’s freedom. Don’t let this happen on our watch! VOTE!

Water temperatures have been stable for several days at around 40. Wind has been a significant factor in boat control, with the most effective presentation a controlled vertical drift along a particular depth contour. Recently this contour has been 23′ for both ‘eyes and snauger.

An INCREDIBLE volume of eelgrass continues to come down the River making presentations like pitching/dragging plastics like the B-Fish-N Tackle Pulse-R difficult if not impossible. Would certainly give this a shot if I had some 3/8 oz. B-Fish-N Draggin’ jigs….but going vertical with hair and snap-jigging with my signature series EchoTail Teddy Cat by Vibrations Tackle are putting enough fish in the boat to hold my interest pretty much every day.

Subjectively, it seems like the most brutal, frigid weather has been producing the most quality ‘eyes–especially that fall outside the slot…but that’s proabably just me whining.

Back to the things which have been working: Taylor Tackle Killer jigs and the Teddy Cat. Karen has come out with a new color called “willowcat” which is consistently outfishing old reliables–snauger green, purple/purple and red/white/blue.

Like my Teddy Cat, Karen’s “willowcat” pattern looks like the walleye’s main Manitou : the Willowcat. Many folks add a minnow to the jighook and let the treble stinger trail behind hanging free (to pick up weeds). I’ve gone to taking the stinger off and soaking the hair in “Da Juice” (a.k.a. Liquid Willowcat). The fish hit it just as hard, with a 75% reduction in hooks to grab weeds.

Liquid Willowcat is available at many local outlets and on-line at
www.liquidwillowcat.com . Eric Ingvalson who is the brewmaster cooking up Da juice also sells my Teddy Cat through his website.

In-Fisherman magazine called my Teddy Cat “The Swiss Army knife of blade baits” because there are so many ways to configure the hooks and snap attachment points. For vertical jigging deep and in heavy weeds i like to attach the snap to the second hole back behind the head, Using a single treble attached on the bottom, back hole jus in front of the tail. Lately, my tail has been the back couple inches of a B-Fish-N sassafras pattern Pulse-R or one of Eric’s soft plastic willowcats in brown/orange.

Howling NW winds convinced me to visit the court house and VOTE the other day, leaving the next couple days open for fun fishin’ , then guide work through the weekend.

There will come a day–far too soon–when fishing puruists will be mostly sitting on a bucket. ‘Til then, every single day is precious–either out there in a tree during the rut, in the blind waiting for mallards (the little flight is pushing through right now) or rippin’ lips on those wily marble eyes.

Most important: DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!


Comments are closed.