11/09/99
One
Last Plea to Trip Over Your Rods
By Turke Gierke
Lets
face it-there just isn’t enough time to go around and take up
all the seasonal activities that are available during fall, so
thank goodness that fishing boat is in storage.
Upland bird hunting, waterfowling, trout runs, bow-hunting,
first ice hard water fishing, the rut, and on…
I didn’t mention late fall open water walleye fishing,
which is plain and simply one of the best times to wet a line. I
shouldn’t bring it up; another article on great fall walleye
fishing and how the entire lake looks like a ghost town-might just
complicate matters.
After
all, you have put the ol’ 16 foot Lund in the neighbor’s pole
barn for the winter, and now after those other boats are packed in
after yours, it’ll just be a big mess to haul them out. If you
ask to have old ironsides for a short stint, next year you might
just get charged for storage.
I
won’t discuss how annually on lakes: Mille Lacs, Leech, Cass,
Gull, Sag, Winnie, Big Stone, and the St. Croix, and Mississippi
Rivers, The biggest walleye of the year are produced during the
fall fishing season. Or mention that the fish haven’t seen a
lure for weeks. What
fun would it be to fish Mille Lacs’ Indian Point, or Garrison
Reef, all by yourself or with only two other boats out there at
the most? On Mille
Lacs there might be a little more pressure than that, but not on
the weekdays. Head
north to Messes like Leech or Winnie and they will be even less
pressured.
Along
with the reduced pressure on the fish, walleye have to put on the
pounds for winter-gorge on baitfish.
Team up those factors, and be allowed to fish spots where a
boat jockeys license is no longer required, and good fishing
success is not hard to understand.
Great
fall walleye fishing as I hinted at before is not a phenomena
associated with a hand full of lakes but the rule to all fisheries
great and small. To
find eyes, generally a jig and a minnow is the key to daytime
success. Sharp
dropping underwater points are a great place to start, ½ ounce
jigs and heavier are necessary to reach the depths. Tip the jig
with a healthy sized minnow and course the drop offs from 25-35
feet deep, and deeper if needed.
Use the electronics wisely and work marked fish. A well
placed bait slowly twitched in front of a hog eye’s snout is
enough to stimulate a bite. The
water is cold so a slower presentation is normally called for.
Crankbaits
are a fantastic fall presentation. Deep diving crankbaits that
reach depths of 20-30 feet deep can due a lot of searching for and
catching walleye. Again
work the edges of points and other classic structure.
In life (and fishing) accurate generalizations are risky at
best, but fall fish seem to relate to specific patterns year after
year. One being that
in the day the eyes seem to hold 10-20 feet deeper than they did
on summer locations, but like summer patterns a large number of
eyes move to the shallows at night.
Record the conditions of the day and use the information
for future fishing trips.
Cast
and blast! That is
the label my 32 inch fall walleye catching old friend calls the
early November weekend trips up to Lake Saganaga. Ruffed grouse
bagged and walleye caught. Dip
them in the same beer batter and fry them together.
Time must be made for events like that, and just make sure
your boat is the closest to the pole barn door. |
