Six Million Walleyes and I Can’t Find One

The mojo started strong with a Pull Hard sticker spotted in Vegas - now that's lucky! Well, maybe?

...so when I finish out of Ludington I know I have to get to the pier heads. Then my big decision is do I go north, south, or straight out. Sounds simple as I type this.

With early spring walleye, there’s way too many decisions to be made…Do I go to Lake Erie. Do I go to Sterling State Park. Do I go to Bolles Harbor. Nurse Chris says go to Lake Erie. Go to the Banana Dyke. OK great. But once I get out there where do I even start. Is the water going to be muddy. Is it going to be clear. Are there even going to be any fish.

Then my brain goes wait. Let’s just go to the Detroit River. Yes. Perfect. Go to the Detroit River and get them 10 pound hogs before they magically disappear again.

Well, I like Delray. Delray feels safe. Mentally safe. Not physically safe. Stay away from Delray people. Delray feels familiar. We flipped the boat around into full jigging mode yesterday because the plan was Delray. Crew was set. Me. Surgeon Jenn. Fishin’ buddy Christian. His dad Mark who I have never met before which always adds a little mystery to the morning. Christian texts me the night before. “Delray is closed.” Perfect. Love that for us.

I call the Dip Net bait shop. They tell me only three launches are open. Belanger Park. Ecorse. Wyandotte. Fishing is slow, but someone caught a walleye at the Lake St. Clair mouth. Wait. Six million walleye come through that system and I am making a fishing decision off a rumor that a single fish existed somewhere.

Now I am standing there staring at the boat thinking OK… so now I have three choices… which somehow feels worse than having none. Or maybe six choices. I honestly don’t even know anymore.

Belanger is closest to Delray so decision made. Except… wait. I checked the Lake Erie satellite imagery and it actually looked clear out in front of the Banana Dyke like Nurse Chris predicted. So now I am thinking do we troll instead. We could launch at Elizabeth Park which sits perfectly between the Trenton Channel and the Banana Dyke. Run trolling gear. If nothing happens we buzz upriver and jig.

Sounds brilliant… but… Elizabeth Park does not open until April first.

Cool. Cool. Cool.

Fast forward to this morning…At this point I mentally clock out and let Christian decide our fate. He says we jig. So we jig. You like how I gave you all the credit for the decision buddy.

We get to Belanger. Maybe ten trailers in the lot. Pay ten bucks to launch which feels criminal after a lifetime of free Delray launches. But whatever. We are committed now.

We blast straight out to Two Rocks. It is still not quite bright enough to really see the water color when we set up. By the time the sun gets high enough it is clear we are working with about three to four inches of visibility. Not ideal. But hey…Two Rocks has produced some absolute hogs for me over the years so we give it the respect drift…Nothing…Not even a fake bite to keep morale alive. Not even a sympathy snag.

Around 8:30am somebody decides we should run up to the mouth of Lake St. Clair because somebody heard that somebody caught a fish there yesterday. This is peak early season walleye logic. Chase the rumor fish.

So we make a twenty-minute rip doing about forty. Gorgeous weather. Smooth ride. Spirits high. We pull in and there are maybe ten boats there which instantly boosts confidence. Pack fishing is always reassuring. The pack always knows best.

Water clarity actually looks great. Probably three feet of bluish gray visibility instead of the chocolate milk downriver. Then I notice the water temp. Down at Two Rocks it was 37…Up here it is 33.5. That is aggressively not warmer.

We make a long drift. Nobody nets a fish. We definitely do not net a fish. Optimism slowly leaks out of the boat and we pull lines again and run south to the Belle Isle Bridge. Historically a sneaky early bite there. We slide in and there are another dozen boats. Water is better than Two Rocks but not great. Maybe eighteen inches to two feet of visibility with a temp of 35.5.

We get close enough to chat with another boat. He says they have seen five fish caught that morning. Hope is back. Five out of six million is way better than one out of six million. Trust me, I’m a finance major and know math.

We drift. We stare at rod tips. We stare at graphs. We question life choices. No fish.

We drift past the old UAW building which apparently is no longer the UAW building. Nobody really knows what it is now but fishermen will still use it as a landmark until the year 2087.

By 10:45am we collectively reach the same conclusion. We are done. No more fishing. Final score. Oh for oh. Which if you have been following along lately makes this part of a very impressive early season skunk streak. Steelhead trip. Walleye troll. Now Detroit River jigging. I am basically building elite level appreciation for when things actually go right.

On the bright side. Beautiful morning. Great crew. Boat ran perfect. Nobody dropped a phone in the river. At this point that alone feels like a win.

Next move is unclear. Which means I will probably spend the next three days staring at satellite images, second guessing every launch ramp in southeast Michigan, and somehow ending up sucker fishing again in Ludington.

I may suck at walleye fishing… but I am currently waiting on not one but TWO Master Angler sucker patches. Bam!

Shameless plug - the Whitewater hoodie purchased in January worked flawlessly both days this weekend. Request - Surgeon Jenn would like to request you make stuff for women - You would have at least one customer!