SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – Had soothsayers or oddsmakers predicted the outcome of day one at the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on the Illinois River, precious few would have envisioned the double-digit weights. After sporadic success during bone-cold pre-fishing, more than one-third of the 165-team field brought more than 10 pounds of saugers, with the extraordinary walleye, to the scales following a hot day of competition with temperatures rising into the 80s.
What it took was painstaking precision to unravel tricky conditions with waves of saugers, relatives of the walleye, on the verge of spawning. Which is to say, the next day of angling could continue roistering or suddenly shut down.
“It’s a tough bite,” says Ranger pro Pat Neu of Forestville, Wis., who finished in first with 18 pounds, 8 ounces. “You have to do things right. The fish are going to spawn anytime, and that’s going to change everything.”
Although with regard to the secrets of his success Neu is more closemouthed than the saugers, declining to divulge even a whisper about his technique or location, it’s safe to say the majority of the leaders took advantage of a much-improved jig bite while a few of the leaders did the trick trolling – sometimes a little bit of both. Take Land O’Lakes pro Eric Olson of Minneapolis who scored 13th, with 14 pounds, 6 ounces, by jigging and handlining.
“The wire went on fire today,” Olson says. “It was sublime.”
Coming in second on opening day was Lund pro Jeff Manz of Vanderbilt, Mich., who adjusted on the fly when all he could catch jigging shallow was sheepshead. When many of the competitors around him departed with few, if any, fish, Manz tried trolling and caught a 3-pound sauger to soothe his braised wits. Then he returned to jigging.
“As soon as everyone left, I went to the middle of the river where no one was,” Manz says. “I wasn’t going to leave those fish. I was waiting till it calmed down.”
In deep water with enormous jigs, Manz and co-angler partner Dan Miller of Madison, Wis., stroked the saugers to weigh 18 pounds, 6 ounces, despite a 15-incher in their six-fish bag. Other top-10 weights came from the same area, which calls into question how the crew downstream from the launch site will fare with added company once word spreads regarding their whereabouts.
“Everyone’s going to be down there, but I don’t think it’s going to matter because you can’t just pull into that spot and whack fish,” Manz says.
Change is good?
Even though Manz had fished the Illinois but once before, other top finishers depended on plenty of experience and a measure of luck. A case in point in the experience department was John Balla of Bartlett, Ill., who has participated in spring tournaments out of Spring Valley on another circuit for eight straight years, with two top-10 finishes. Balla came in sixth – 15 pounds, 4 ounces – with a mix of three-way rigging and jigging.
Balla, too, is wary of the spawn as well as possible weather changes. “I think that a cold front could really shut them down,” Balla says. “If I can find males on the flats, I might be in business. I think the spawn is pretty close.”
With a bit of good fortune on his side, Mike Schaefer of Fond Du Lac, Wis., managed five fish of about a pound and a half each. Nothing special there, but Schaefer’s sixth was an exceedingly uncommon walleye tilting the scales at 6 pounds to boost his total weight to 15 pounds, 14 ounces. Relying on eight years of tournament experience here, Schaefer prevailed despite the shifting conditions and crowded fishing holes.
“It’s changing every day,” Schaefer says. “Just when you think you’ve got it under control, it changes. And every spot has a lot of company. We worked different spots and tried to stay out of the crowd.”
Snap and pop
If competing in crowds is a hallmark of jigging talent, then John Kolinski of Menasha, Wis., delivered in spades, even if he came up one fish short of a limit. They were the right fish, however, to put him in 10th with 14 pounds, 8 ounces. Especially deft at jigging with two rods at once in river currents, Kolinski adjusted as the day progressed, starting with lime hair jigs early and switching to sherbet-colored plastics when the sun was higher. Additional ingredients in Kolinski’s recipe are manipulating the jig slowly in the morning and popping it more aggressively later in the afternoon.
Yet, in spite of the better-than-expected weights, Kolinski says he expected more out of everyone, including the fish. “I’m surprised the bite isn’t better than it is,” Kolinski says. “Usually when the water temperature hits 53 degrees, the bite smokes.”
You bet the bite smoked for the 61 teams who weighed in more than 10 pounds, to say nothing of fourth-place Ranger pro Ron Gazvoda of Lakewood, Colo., and fifth-place Ranger pro Keith Eshbaugh of West Alexander, Pa. Gazvoda weighed in 17 pounds, 6 ounces; and Eshbaugh landed 17 pounds, 1 ounce. In a tournament with a top-20 cut, though, they’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow.
Day-two takeoff starts at 7 a.m. Thursday at the Spring Valley Boat Club.
Day-one links: