Professional Walleye Hunters Seek Employment

All I have to say about these walleye right now is… ugh.

In case you didn’t know, Matt Brown, daughter Riley, and I basically invented the early spring Brest Bay troll on Lake Erie. Good Friday, April 3, 2015. The three of us went out for what was supposed to be a quick three hour shake-down troll. We actually wanted to jig the river but there was still ice floating around like bad decisions. We stopped at Jeff’s Tackle in Monroe to buy a pee bucket and ask about the fishing report. The guy hit us with a very confident, very sarcastic, “Good luck, buddy.”

We pulled into a completely empty Sterling State Park launch. I remember saying, “Well, at least we’ll see if my new electronics work.” Dead calm morning. Not a soul in sight. Unlike the SS Minnow, our little three hour tour turned into 18 absolute hog walleyes. Legendary day in the history books…you’re welcome!

Fast forward to now. It was Surgeon Jenn’s turn for her first ever walleye adventure in the Walleye Capital of the World. Expectations were… high.

The weekend started strong. Jenn picked up her first pair of bibs to match the AFTCO jacket from last weekend’s show. We had sourdough pizza the night before. Installed five new boat batteries like responsible adults. Early rise. Gym visit to get the blood flowing. Pit stop at the truck stop bathroom where I discovered they had one of those duck claw games. Honestly, the trip could have ended right there and I would have called it a success.

Rolling into the launch there were maybe 25 to 35 trailers and steady action. Oh man. This is gonna be fun.

We started in front of the rock wall after carefully weaving through about 1.4 to 3 feet of water. I begin setting up and immediately discover the Minn Kota would not turn the blades. Fantastic. Lucky for me Jenn is now a certified salmon spread technician, so I went old school on the wheel while she set six lines.

Out went P10s, Bandits, and #9 Flicker Shads. Meanwhile I’m down there hand-cranking the Minn Kota prop like spinning the prop on an airplane. Somehow that fixed it and it started working again. Completely normal behavior. At this point I’m wondering if it’s time to just mortgage something and buy a Lowrance Ghost ($3,500…really!)

We started trolling and quickly realized the water was… how do I put this politely… mud. Absolute mud. I have seen chocolate milk clearer than what we were fishing in. Very few marks. Very little confidence.

We pulled lines and headed north. There was a decent pack of boats off Stoney Point. Pulled in there and… still mud. Still no marks. So we kept trucking.

Just past Fermi the water improved slightly. I could actually see the bottom of my trolling bags which meant visibility had increased to a luxurious two feet. We picked up a few scattered marks. Nothing exciting. Nothing that screamed “hog city.”

We worked our way back toward Stoney and finally called it at 11:45am. Final score. Oh for oh. Not a bite. Not even a courtesy tap.

If you’ve been following these reports, sucker fishing and ice fishing excluded, that makes two straight skunks. Today on Erie and the recent steelhead trip on PM Lake. I like getting this stuff out of the system early. It lines the mojo up perfectly. Nothing makes you appreciate the hot trips like getting punched in the face by reality a couple times first.

So what’s next. Apparently Nurse Chris thinks we should have just kept running north to the Banana Dyke. Which means tomorrow we will absolutely not be listening to Nurse Chris and will instead consider running to Delray… which may or may not even be open. Hard to say.

At moments like this I find myself missing Ludington. Funny how that works.