News
and Events
2006
July
15th-16th
CWA Trinidad
Should
we start with the good, or the really good,
Lets go with the good, Trinidad
in the past has been a pretty decent lake to
fish. Not a large quantity of legal size fish
but enough that in 3 years of fishing it we
have always cashed a check. This year was not
any different. Prefishing was just plain awful.
2 Days on the water and my best fish was a 13
1/2 inch walleye. Lots of fish, but nothing
legal. Thank god for the crowd! Day one we started
pulling lindy rigs tipped with leaches and worms
in a small bay where I marked a ton of fish
and caught a lot of short fish prefishing. No
good, We wandered around the bend and low and
behold Alissa being the very observant and supersticous
girl she is observed a Monarch butterfly land
on one of her poles. After the butterfly flew
off, she pulled the line in, Put a bottom bouncer
with a crawler harness on. Choosing a smile
blade that most closely resembled the Colors
of the butterfly. Silly I know but within 10
minutes I was netting our 1st and only fish
of the 1st day. While we were playing with butterflies
other fishermen in a big group directly across
from us were nailing 9+ pound fish, So we decided
that's where we needed be on day 2.
Good call as we boated a 22 inch walleye and
an 18 inch walleye, Cashing 3 checks for the
tourney, 1st Place over all for mixed couples
and 10th overall through the tourney. The Cabelas
NTC is in our sites and obtainable as we
sit 6th over all for the Colorado Competitions
and 1st Over all for mixed couples in the CWA.
I will be heading to Horsetooth on Wed for a
lil prefishing then it will off to the tourney
there this coming weekend.
For the great news, 1st we had our boat back
and boy did I miss her, We were unable to really
run it as we have this break in process but
just to have our Lowrance
electronics and GPS as well as our Co
Pilot Minn Kota back was fantastic. But
the really, really good news was finding out
Mercury
decided to cover the cost of the powerhead and
all parts, What a great outcome to a bad situation,
In my mind they are and will always be at the
top of my list for service and you will always
see their name pushing my prop as I coast by
you on the water. Thanks George you made my
year.
June 3rd & 4th
Lake McConaughy CWA
Point Tourney Results
Results
This
tourney was a good confidence builder for Alissa
and I. We cashed 2 checks and received a few
plaques to add to the wall of fame. We finished
1st overall for mixed couples and 14th overall
for the tourney. Here’s a nice 26 inch
walleye we got on the 2nd day missing big fish
by a few ounces
On
day one we cranked Rip Shads in 10-12 ft of
water. It produced a number of fish but only
one in the slot, a nice 24 incher. On day two
we had to shallow up and change crank patterns
as the wind seemed to blow the fish shallower.
We changed over to Rapala Shad Raps and eventually
picked up our 5 keepers including the nice 26
incher above. Fortunately Alissa had her fish
hat on and nailed our last fish, a 15 1\4 incher
as I was reeling in the poles to get to the
weigh boat. Dave
and Jeff Kooser have become good friends
and fishing companions, Here’s a picture
of Jeff and his first 24 incher he brought to
the boat for a good tourney finish. (picture)
Next
week is set for a bit of relaxation and some
time to spend with some repeat customer. The
fishing is pretty hot right now and I’m
sure the guys will have a couple of nice limits
to take home with them. Then it will be off
to Boysen where Kevin and John will try to scare
up a nice finish in the 2nd Lowrance Pro Team
Tourney.
June
17th & 18th
Lowrance
Pro team Circuit Boysen reservoir
Results
Well
lets start with the REAL bad news 1st. All the
combined years of going too fast, flying through
the water in 3-6 foot chops at the highest speed
I could achieve, Finally caught up to the Black
Beauty, (That’s what I call the fiberglass
machine that propels me through the water at
high speeds and RPM’s) Yup, threw a rod
Thursday before the tourney. Awful, but sometimes
when tragedy hits you just gotta look back and
say “Did I deserve this?” I think
I did. So on to the tourney. With the boat incident
affecting prefishing and John and I having only
one solid hole we were in a bit of trouble.
But then Age and wisdom pointed us in the right
direction, Not the winning direction but at
least giving us another hole where 9 of 11 of
our weighers came from. Johns previous partner
and excellent fisherman Ted Cadman showed us
a presentation, specifically fire tiger crawler
harness, Pulled slowly over an edge adjacent
to Tough Creek. Thanks Ted. We managed a decent
13th place finish and an invite to the Devils
lake championship.
Next
week its off to Pueblo where fellow guide Glenn
Cahall has loaned us his boat and with our knowledge
of the lake it should be more points in the
CWA and help us towards our goal of reaching
the Cabelas
national qualifier in 2007.
June
24th & 25th
CWA
Pueblo - Results
Wasn’t
our best outing but It will have to do. Unable
to locate a good group of legal weighers, 18
inch and above, during prefishing had me a lot
nervous going into this one. Day one highlights
were a nice 10lb wiper and about 15 under length
walleye. Goose egg day one. Fortunately half
of the teams in the tourney started day 2 out
in the exact same place. Day to was more productive
in quantity of fish but we were only able to
produce one 20 inch walleye. Not great but not
to bad as Alissa and I are currently sitting
in 8th
place with ten teams going to the Cabelas
championships. Next were off to Trinidad
in which we will have the pleasure of getting
our boat back on the water with a rebuilt power
head to boot, Boy have I missed her. Lesson
to be learned, don’t abuse what you cant
afford to lose. Even if you think you can.
May
20th-21st
Keyhole
Northeast Wyoming Walleye Association
I am happy to say we are finished with Keyhole
tourneys for the year. The big bite never came
as it usually does every year. Three tourneys
in a row with an average 1st place weight of
17lbs. Very strange for that lake. I spoke to
a good friend and retired PWT
Pro Jim Randash, He believes the young of
the year shad never had their annual winter
kill this year. His friends up fishing cut tow
fish open for the grill and both were stuffed
with Shad. Sounds good to me cuz that was a
tough bite. On the 1st day we tagged a beautiful
27 inch female at 10:30 and thought we were
on the right pace for an excellent tourney.
A couple crappie and a Northern later we weighed
and were sitting in a comfortable sixth place.
Day two, Goose Egg, Not even any missed fish,
just goose egg. Live and learn, Keyhole was
actually better to me then ever in the past
so I look forward to tear'n her up next year.
Memorial
day coming. Lots of fish on Glendo, some nice
campfires and good times with good friends.
If yah see me on the water, come over and say
hello, I'll try to point yah in the right direction.
May
13th &14th
Keyhole
Wyoming Walleye Circuit
Mothers Day
Yes
I know, I said I was finished with the Wyoming
Walleye Circuit. “BUT” It was
mothers Day. And mom being no slouch to Wyoming
lake’s, BTW take a look at some of her
photo’s in the Photo
gallery, I had to give it a try. Plus Alissa
was in Greece for three weeks so my kitchen
pass was open.
Pre
fishing was slow, water temps were still a bit
chilly for my liking, in the 56 degree range.
We picked up a nice 25 incher on a slip bobber
on Friday the day before the tourney and that
was enough to determine how and where we were
to start. We stuck to our game plan of slip
bobbering the flats on the 1st day. No fish
by noon and the wind kept blowing us off our
spot. Was time to make a change. We decided
to try running some Smile
blades, I had hand tied two weekends before
at Wilson, Glad we did. Within an hour we had
a big eye at the side of the boat that we failed
to net and land, An hour later we boated a 15
¼ incher and that was our weight for
the day. We failed to capitalize on a few bites
and were tied for last in people whom had caught
fish, Which BTW was only 25 of 78 teams. I was
actually relatively happy for our menial day
1 weight. Day 2 was all about bites = fish right?
We had a lot of bites but couldn’t turn
them into fish in the livewell. Oh well was
great to spend the weekend with mom, doing something
we both love.
Keyhole
again next week, Chuck
as my partner. Check him out. Hope the fishing
gets better, He’s a golfer and I’d
really like to convert him.
May
6th-7th
Keyhole
Lowrance Pro Team Tourney
believe
if you’ve followed my experiences with
Keyhole in the last few years you will have
noticed that they have really, really been a
bummer. Well whats the chances of this year
being any better? Having personally never had
a fish, that I reeled in, used as a weigher
in any of my past Keyhole tourneys, things can
only get better right? Lets start with pre fishing.
This beauty came 2 nights before the tourney,
I picked her up on the flats in the middle of
the lake on a Mac’s
Lures Double Whammy, Fluorescent Orange
Blade, tipped with a minnow. The exciting thing
was catching her and 3 Northern, 34 inches,
36 inches, and 40 inches, Without any body else
in the boat, Was quite the fiasco but a day
to remember and all the fish after a few pictures
went back to reek havoc on the next lucky sucker.
Didn’t get her weight but she went 29
½ inches and was very plump, Which leads
me to the 1st day of the tourney, On the flats,
slow trolling Mac’s Spinner blades with
Minnows and worms. I have to give John a huge
pat on the back, He kept us over fish all day
with a 20-30 mile an hour wind using his Minn
Kota 101 lb thrust trolling motor, Pretty
much made for jigging and maneuvering, Not straight
trolling or cranking.
Unfortunately
the bite was extremely tough with ¾’s
of the fishermen not weighing a fish. But we
did, a nice twenty incher that went 4 ½
lbs, This fish was a football, Now Had I had
my act together we would have weighed three
fish, but it wasn’t meant to be. We ended
up with zero bites and no fish on the 2nd day.
We along with other fishermen noted you may
get one bite you may get 5 bites but there will
not be many and you have to capitalize on what
you get. I Look forward to fishing more tourneys
with John and we learned quite a bit of each
others styles. I get a break next weekend and
hopefully the following weekend up at Keyhole
will be a bit better, but to the least as much
fun as this tourney. The water temps were in
the 54 degree range and as they start rising
the fishing should get better.
April
30th
KWA Wilson Lake
This
fishery is awesome, I was a bit skeptical of
wandering to Kansas, 1st They say the wind never
stops, It doesn’t, 2nd I could still see
Pikes Peak and I was 300 miles away, 3rd I was
fishing a lake, in a new state, with a partner
I’d barely met. Being from Wyoming I could
take the wind, and Mike turned out to be a knowledgeable
partner whom was very good at operating a net.
Pre fishing was great as we located good numbers
of fish in multiple locations. Our only problem
was quality of fish, We put 50 fish in the boat
prefishing and not a one of them was over 17
inches. Our only big fish spots were place’s
that didn’t turn on for us and were maybes
if we got our first weighters.
Tourney
morning started off spectacular as we had 6
fish between 15 and 16 ½ inches by 8:30.
We were drifting with a combination of lures,
I had a 3/8 oz Lindy No Snag Weight with a Mack’s
Glo Hook on a 5ft leader. Tipped with a
minnow and boy did the fish obliterate it. Mikes
choice was a Pink
Smile Blade Tipped with a fat juicy crawler.
Both presentations worked well and caught many
fish. Our best results came from the dam face
near the towers. We bounced around a lot searching
for better quality fish and finally found them
off an island near the launch. With only 45
mins to go we pulled an 18 ½, a 17 ½,
and had a good knee shaker. I tied into a beast
fought her for a good 10 mins and got the big
eye to the boat, She went 16 inches as I had
fowl hooked her in one of its lower fins. Got
us both real excited for about ten mins, after
putting the fish back in the water we had to
get in to weigh, Had we found this place an
hour earlier or had it been a two day tourney
I am confident to say we could have wrapped
up a nice 1st or 2nd place finish.
I
was also very impressed with the Kansas
Walleye Association. They put on a great
show and the people were great, Next year I
will try to get a few more of their tourneys
in.
It’s
off to Keyhole next weekend to get some big
eyes and Try a new circuit. The Lowrance
Pro Team Circuit has wandered into Wyoming
and if its anything like the tourneys they put
on elsewhere It ought to be run well and a good
time.
April
26th
WHACK!
And that seems to be how it hits every year.
Fishing season begins in 1 week for us here
at Walleyetrackers. 2005 was a great year filled
with the ups and downs from the tourneys, To
meeting new friends and contacts throughout
the fishing industry. 2006 already appears to
be more promising with lots of tourneys on the
horizon and guided fishing dates filling fast.
Personally, I can't wait to get out on the water
with a few new faces and memories to be made.
This
year's Glendo population of Eyes is looking
strong. Those little guys we were seeing on
a consistent basis are a year older and a year
hungrier. Water levels are suppose to top last
year which puts us in the trees, and them big
eyes love the trees. At Boysen, the Cosway is
already almost full so the perch are going to
be strong, and when the perch are strong, the
walleye's are even better, plus a few spots
that haven't seen water in 5 years are going
to be back in action, There is one spot we took
4 people out for three days straight and were
limited by noon with fish 15-22 inches long.
Then there's Keyhole, with three big tourneys
running back to back from the 6th of May to
the 21st, I'm thinking it may be a rough start
to the year. Water levels are still quite a
bit down with no definite moisture in site.
So
the prognosis is: Lots of exciting days full
of fish on Glendo and Boysen with the usual
chance for a nice one on Keyhole.
We
have had a huge amount of request for our guide
services this year, Glendo dates are filling
up fast so get in touch with us soon to plan
your adventure. We would also like to welcome
John Bennett to our guide ranks. John is a Douglas
native who spends most of his extra time hunt'n
down walleyes on Glendo.
Well,
wish Mike and I luck for this weekend on Wilson
Lake in Kansas. This is the Kansas Walleye Associations
first tourney of the year and it guarantees
to be windy, cold, with a good chance at some
post spawners. Hope to here from you soon and
keep checking our News and events as we proceed
through the year. Good Luck and Keep those lines
wet and tight.
Kevin
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