There is nothing more depressing than watching the rain fall through your office window when you want to fish. This was the case Wednesday as I sat at my desk and stared out the window in front of me. This window is on the 6th floor and faces NW so I get a bird’s eye view of any storm coming my way. Most days it is pretty cool to see a thunderstorm roll in but today was different, I wanted to go fishing after work. Early forecasts were calling for thunderstorms in the evening but as the day wore on that chance dwindled away. By the time I got home all rain had stopped, the wind had died down to nothing and the overcast skies remained.
Time to catch some fish.
Of course, once I arrived at the ramp around 8:15, the rain started up again. It was just a light drizzle and it would continue to do this the whole time I was out. At least the wind was next to nothing. When I was out last Sunday night the NE wind never quit and I spent more time fighting it instead of fishing. I’ll take a little rain over the wind any day. By 8:30 pm I was lines down and working my way north against the current. Water temps were right around 50 degrees and the water was still very clear. Nothing much happened at first but once it got dark things turned on in a hurry. Just after 9:00 pm I had my first fish on for the night and what would turn out to be the biggest. A 24 inch male grabbed my #11 Black and Gold Rapala on my 40 foot lead. I eased him and and when I got him to the surface I could see he was barely hooked. I had a feeling he might be since he hit it so lightly. I had my net handy and after a well placed scoop he was in the cooler. About 5 minutes later number 2 grabbed the same lure and he met the same result. While I was resetting lines I decided to swap out the #9 Rapala on my 20 foot lead for another #11 Rapala in a custom color called Pink Lemonade. No sooner had the weight hit the bottom when number 3 hit that custom Rapala. A quick flip and he was in the cooler as well. Around 9:30 number 4 hit the same Rapala and into the cooler he went. I was beginning to think that I would be done soon and of course, it didn’t happen. I didn’t catch the last one until 10:00 pm. That 30 minutes seemed like forever. I started to question lure color, location, speed, everything I could think of. I guess it just goes to show how spoiled I am when it comes to walleye fishing. I know a lot of people that would be thrilled to get a limit in less than an hour and here I am bitching about it. The last fish was the smallest of the night and he too hit the pink lemonade Rapala. Nothing on my kicker tonight and I only had one casualty, I busted the lip on #9 Rapala earlier. During that half hour I also caught two of those other fish. To be honest I was surprised I didn’t catch more. I had been hearing reports for the last week of people catching them everywhere. It was only a matter of time. They should really take off this weekend with the warm water.
So the final tally for the night was 5 walleye ranging in size from 18 to 24 inches long, all males and all caught on #11 Rapala’s in Black/Gold and Pink Lemonade. One minor casualty and a couple of unmentionables. It drizzled most of the night but it was so light I never really got wet. The wind did eventually pick up some but nothing to get excited about. During my short little slump I did move out of the area that I had caught all my fish. Don’t know how much of a difference it really made but once I got about 200 yards north I hooked and landed the last one. Did they move? Did they shut down? Was it a fluke? I’ll never know, to many variables to try and pin it down on one thing. Doesn’t matter though, 5 fish were in the box and I was headed home.
Muskrat Adventures 