The 2013 MWC World Walleye Championship on Bay de Noc has came and gone, and let me just say it was an honor to compete in my 3rd straight championship against 45 of the best walleye teams on the planet.  To make the Championship, you have to fish a minimum of 3 regular season events, and they take the top 45 teams out of 400 some teams that compete throughout the regular season.   It is an invite only, $100,000 purse event, in which you truly are competing against the best of the best.

Paul and I were especially excited that it was hosted on the Great Lakes, a personal favorite of ours, but the fishing was just flat out TOUGH… for EVERYONE!   I talked to several teams at the rules meeting that hadn’t caught a fish all week!  It is a very wind dependent fishery, you need wind!  And surprisingly  for October in upper Michigan, we had none.   Except for one day in prefish…

After our first to days prefishing of calm winds, clear water, and getting blanked by the walleyes, we finally got a strong southeast wind that sent big waves crashing into the south shoreline.  Along with the wind came the walleyes!  Paul and I took on the 4 foot waves that stained up the water near the Ford River area and put the smack  down on some nice walleyes, 22″, 24″, 19″, 28″, 23″, and a 22″er in just a few hours.  We had multiple presentations going, but mostly got our fish on gold spinners trolled with inline weights behind Off Shore Tackle boards.  It was a huge bag and we were excited after 2 days of frustrating fishing.

Then came the problem…  We looked at the forecast and saw those nice on-shore winds that we put a smack down on the fish were shifting to very light west winds for the next 4 days including our last day of prefish and the tournament.  That means a glass calm lake and crystal clear water in the spot we were in.  We new we were screwed and would have to look for something else, but what??   Some of our teammates had had success catching legal fish in the the upper part of Little Bay de Noc, but they were small fish, not tournament winners..  So where do those fish go when that water goes calm and clear, to the weeds? out deep off the breaks?  We tried both with no success.

Then came tourney day, with no other good options, so we decided to make the run down south and see if somehow some of those big fish were left in our spot even with those calm off shore winds.  They were mostly gone, one of our teammates tied into and 8lber, but that was it.  After a few hours of nothing, we decided to make the run up North and try to grind out our 5 fish so we could stay in the game for the 3 day tournament.  We worked a 30-34 foot stretch in Little Bay with bottom bouncer and 3oz inline weights, and we able to grind out 3 legal fish for 7lbs 8oz.

Knowing some big bags were pulled in our Little Bay spot on day 1, we decided to stick with it day 2.  We did manage a limit of 5 legal fish, but they weren’t the ones we needs, another 7 lb bag had us sitting in 18th place going into the final day.

The payouts for the tournament from 11th through last place are the same, so knowing we had to make a big jump to get in the top 10 to make some more $$$, we needed to head down south and look for that elusive big bite.  We tried some weeds in the Ford river area and Round Island Area, and some deep breaks along the way.   Then we came up to Little Bay and fished in shallow weeds again looking for a big bite.  We took a swing for the fences and came up blank, no regrets there…   Ended up finishing in 21st place out of 45 boats, certainly not what we were hoping for but not too bad against this competition on this body of water.

So the winners and top teams, what were they doing?  What did I learn?  When that winds dies, the shoreline fish are gone, don’t bother!  Where do they go?  The weeds or steep breaks just as I had suspected!  But you have to be on the right weeds, the fresh cabbage weeds.   The winners got most of there fish in Ogontz Bay in Big Bay de Noc trolling spinners above the weeds.  Paul and I actually prefished the spot doing the same thing they were doing and got nothing.  The problem was that we were there right smack in the middle of a sunny day, and the bite was a grind.  One pass wasn’t enough to figure them out.  The guys that won the tournament never caught a 5 fish limit out of the spot.  Lesson learned, in those conditions, find the best cabbage weed possible and grind it out.    Some big fish were also caught on the deep breaks at the mouth of Little Bay, but it was kind of a needle in a hay stack.   Tough Tough Tough Fishery!   Congrats to the top teams for figuring it out on a tough bite!

The highlight of the whole trip by far was that my wife Julia, 1 month old daughter Stella, and my mom had made the trip from Cleveland to the weigh-in and watched us weigh in our 5 fish limit on day 2!  It was so much fun to give them a shout out on stage.  They knew we were swinging for the fences on Day 3 and were proud of us for doing it even though we ended up with a zero, that meant a lot to me.  I have the greatest fans in the world!  I love you Julia, Stella, and Mom!