Back to back major tournaments on the Detroit River, whew….. Where do I start. This has been my 5th year or so of fishing tournaments on the Detroit in the Spring. I know it really well, feel really comfortable with the techniques, and have seen a lot of different scenarios play out; so I felt like this was my time going into these back to back tournaments.
The MWC was first, the smaller less $ tournament, and a team format in which I fish with my teammate Greg Yarbourgh. With only 2 days to prefish, Greg went to the lake, and I fished the river 2 days prior to the event. The lake was ruled out quickly as we were restricted to the Michigan waters of Erie and Greg only marked limited fish and caught small ones. The river was a different story. There were still lots of monster prespawn females loaded in the lower river and close to takeoff. It was a no brainer for us to focus on the lower river for the tourney.
On day one of the tournament we started on the back side of Grosse Isle, and just couldn’t seem to get our groove on. Missing fish, watching big fish get caught all around us, ugh, frustrating. The bite dried up and we had to make a move. We started our milk run of spots on the lower Canadian side, and finally got on a good bite at the top of Fighting Island. My favorite combo here, a Northland eyeball in pink tipped with a live minnow did the trick. It was a little too late and we ran out of time before we could put together the bag we wanted. Weighing in just over 30lbs, we knew we need to score a monster bag day 2 to make some noise.
Rested up and reloaded, we started day 2 with a similar game plan, go to Stony Island, focus, and stick a few pigs right off the bat. That’s exactly what happened. 3 fish over 8lbs were in the livewell in the first 45 minutes. Then the bite dried up and we went on our milk run. Catching fish everywhere, we just couldn’t get the big ones. Greg wanted to handline one of his honey holes on the lower Canadian side, I had no confidence handlining, as we hadn’t caught any big ones there the last few days… “OK, I’ll trust your instincts, Greg, 10 minutes you get” I say. We spin around, not 5 minutes later, I feel a thump, “Got one!” It’s a big one, after slowly raising the fish up, this beast of a prespawn female emerges, Greg scoops her up and I had a smile ear to ear!!! I couldn’t believe it, I finally got a big one on the handline! Big f-13 floating rapala in clown color took the fish! We immediately switched over to all large F13s with limited time left. A few minutes later, another thump, this time it was Greg’s turn. 9lber, and it was time to go back to weigh in. We had a big bag, but would it be big enough? We weighed 45lbs 7oz for 5 fish. My biggest tourney bag ever! It shot us up to 23rd place, 1 spot out of the money, but that big prespawner weighed 11lbs6oz and won us the big fish pot! After all that we scored good points in the championship qualifying and team of the year standings! Sitting in 3rd place for the team of the year! What a come back!
After this one was over, it was time to head home for the Easter Sunday, rest up with the family, and refocus for the National Walleye Tour the following week. This was the big one, with over $300,000 in the purse, and being a pro-am format, as opposed to team, I was on my own. If there is one tournament of the year to win, this is it.
My normal crew that I network with wasn’t fishing this one, so I approached probably the best walleye tournament team on the planet that I had gotten to know over the years: Korey Sprengel, Bill Shimota, and Dusty Minke, and asked if they would take me onto help break down this massive body of water. For this tournament, there were no boundaries, Ohio, Michigan, and Canadian waters of Erie were in play, as well as the entire river. They welcomed me on board, we were a team and I was pumped, ready to rock.
With the big river fish all spawning during prefish or already spawned out, the weights of the river fish were dropping significantly everyday. The lake fish had already spawned a week earlier and had begun fattening up. Plus, there are just so many damn fish in the Lake, if the weather allowed us to get there, that’s where we needed to be.
Prefishing was really good around the Bass Islands, Rattlesnake, and even Kelleys. We popped some good ones near the can area, but that area got ripped up with muddy water so easily with the winds, we didn’t want to rely on it. In Canada, Pelee and the North Shoreline was just too cold of water, and east sister and the Chics yielded some fish, but not big ones. We needed to get to Ohio.
If it was a small craft advisory and we were stuck in the river, then everyone was stuck there and we were confident, but if you could go to the lake, you had to do it. Day 1 we were greeted with east winds at 15-20mph and 4-5 foot waves. It was a 35 mile run to the the chute between North Bass and Middle Bass where I wanted to start.
After 1hr and 45 minute run right into 4-5 footers (the Starcraft took them on like a champ), I set up just North of Rattlesnake with cleaner water and less marks than desired. Crank baits were going good, so I started with 3 husky jerks and 1 Bandit. No takers, and less fish marked than I like, I had a short day, it wasn’t long and I was out of there. I ran over to Kelleys. Even though we hadn’t caught many big ones over there, I caught and marked a ton of them! And being a local, I know big fish should be in the area. I get there and the marks were there on my Lowrance, not as good as in prefish, but they were there. No takers, what the hell was going on. I picked up and ran to the south passage between Catabwa and South Bass. I didn’t like what my Lowrance was telling me and kept running. Just south of Rattlesnake, marked a few, fished, nothing. It was 11:30 and I had nothing. Tournament fishing for big $ is not for the faint of heart. The stress was mounting.
I figured I had about 1 more move, and if it was the right one, I know I’m capable of putting 45lbs in the livewell in less than an hour. I decided I’ll point it towards Detroit and set up once I get I the best marks I can find. Just west of North bass, the Lowrance lit up like a Christmas tree with good dense bleeps, this was the spot. I set up 2 husky jerks and 2 spinners. The spinners started getting cracked. We were on big fish, but they were hard to get in the boat. In the next 1hr 30minutes, we had 10 bites, and landed 5. You only need to weight in 5, and guess what, we had the 5 right ones. In the biggest tournament of my life, I weighed 43.60lbs on day 1 and was sitting in 3rd place out of 104 of the best walleye fisherman on the planet.
Wow, after the way our morning started, I was almost in tears of joy and pure emotion when those fish hit the scales. Then came the tv cameras, interviews, wow, this was exciting, but I knew I had work to do. I think I added about 43.6 gray hairs to my head as well this day.
We went back to the cabin, regrouped with the rest of the guys and started skeeming for the next day. The theme amongst Bill, Korey, Dusty, and myself was that the bigger fish came deep and on spinners. That’s what we needed to do and that’s what we were going to do.
The wind shifted to Northwest for day 2 and we had another long bumpy ride. I got to my area west of North Bass and it was on immediately. 1 fish after another, camera guy in the boat, it was fun, but there was a problem… The 8-9lb average I had yesterday turned to 3-5lbers. Then I started to slowly chip away at some bigger fish, couple 27″, I thought if I just keep grinding it out, I could put together a nice bag and have a chance at this. Bottom bouncers were firing for the bigger ones. Eventually the bite slowed and it wasn’t until with about 45 minutes to go, I found that the bigger fish moved up on the edge of the northwest reef contour in 30 feet of water. I should have known this from the NW wind. Damn, I thought to myself, I should have been here an hour ago. I did stick to nice upgrades and dumped another good one. If I only had 1 more hour. It was time to head in, and although I had a decent bag, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I weighed 35lbs and slipped to 12th in the 104 boat field, not bad, but not what I wanted. In this game, any time you finish in the money, you’ll take it, especially against the best of the best.
Bill had 2 very good days and ended up in 3rd, Dusty pulled 40lbs day 2 and got a check, and Korey had a solid finish placing in the low 30s. I can’t thank these guys enough for taking me on in their team. These guys are true professionals and I no longer wonder how they always do so well in tournaments. The work ethic, preparation, experience, team work, along with a just pure God given talent to find and catch Walleyes, they’ve got the ‘it’ factor. I learned so much this week, wow! Along with that, fun guys and a riot to hang out with. I also want to throw a shout out to Dan Smith who co-anglered the event and helped me prefish all week, you were a huge help, along with the other guys who stayed with us and helped prefish. My co-anglers during the event, John (who won the co division) and Ralph, you guys are studs and will be dangerous to contend with if you decide to take on these tourneys in your own boats as pros….
A shout out to my beautiful wife and daughter, Julia and Stella, who are my biggest fans, and came to cheer me on, I love you! Couldn’t do this without you! It’s nice to be back home and spend some time with the family now. I’m off from tournaments for a little while now, and I’ll be running charters back home from the island to Cleveland over the next few months, give me a call if you want to get out on the big pond!
I think that’s it for now, until next time, tight lines!!!!
