Green Bay Recap

The third stop of the National Guard Walleye Tour at Green Bay is complete and I guess you can say it turned out how I expected it would go. While I always hope for a top ten, there are certain bodies of water that it takes a lot of luck to do well and this tournament was certainly one of them.

It is not that you have to be lucky to win on Green Bay, but it certainly does help.  Because of the long cold spring, once again the lake and fish were behind schedule.  Typically you would have a strong mud bite going as well the the big walleye up North on the rocks going and thus you would have the entire 141 boat field spread out across the bay.  This year due to the late spring the mud bite was just starting to kick in 18 miles South of take-off and it became very clear after a few days of prefishing that most of the field would be fishing this area.  It was also pretty clear that the winning fish would probably come from up North but it was to big a gamble for most that are trying to make the championship to take a Left and gamble on those fish.

Yes, we all like to fish to win these events but we also have to keep Championship points in the back of our mind while making decisions on how much we can gamble.  For me, that meant fishing the more reliable "mud" fish down South.  And, as it turned out, 95% of the field opted for the same thing by day two.  Having that many boats trolling in the same location meant each bite was going to be critical and that the bite was going to be tougher than most expected.

So with that said I headed to the mud on day one and trolled up 4 weigh fish before the bite totally shut off.  As typical of practice, the morning bite was good and then it got very tough.  Unfortately my first two fish of the morning came off at the motorand I knew that was going to hurt.  I was happy with my 4 fish but needed to drive 18 miles North to a small fish spot to put the last 20 incher in the box.  For day one I weighed 20 pounds and was in striking distance of the cut, just where you want to be.  Losing two fish in a tough bite at the boat is a real killer and for me it ended up costing about 6 to 7 pounds on day one.

Day two started off with a real flurry.  I boated 4 fish in the first trolling pass and things were looking good.  I really needed to catch that 5th big one to make a run at the top ten but unfortunately we were not able to boat another fish.  Instead of running back North toward launch early I opted to stick it out down South and try for another big fish or two and in the end it would cost me some points.  I was never able to get that 5th fish to the boat despite having it hooked up many times. To make matters worse the bumpy ride home and 80 degree water temps killed the 4 fish I had, so I took a 2 pound dead fish penalty also.  Despite the penalty and being one fish short I still ended up 60th and in the money.  Not the finish I was hoping for but when you have 95% of the field fishing one small area bad things can and do happen so I will take my check and get prepared for Lake Oahe at Pierre South Dakota, one of my favorite fisheries.

Since I did not make the top 10, I was able to fish the Nation Guard Soldiers appreciation tournament.  These events are always a lot of fun and the fishing usually ends up being pretty good and once again it proved true.  The Northern Beer boat had a good day weighing 3 walleye for just under 12 pounds.  In the end we got bumped out by National Guard Pro Bill Shimota who turned in a great 3 fish weight over 15 pounds.  Thanks again to all the soldiers for their service and especially all the guys I have been fortunate enough to share my boat with this year.

Before I close this one out, I have a few promotions coming up so if you are heading up to WeFest in Detroit Lakes, MN this week make sure you look for the Northern Beer truck and ask for a sample.  There will be plenty of Northern Beer to go around and hopefully we are done with these storms for a while and the weather cooperates!