The RCL Tour weathermen
It was cold, rainy and punishing, but top two on Illinois River pull off repeat performance
SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – On a topsy-turvy weather day on the Illinois River, the most consistent pro duo did it again, finishing in flip-flop order. Day-two leader Keith Eshbaugh of West Alexander, Pa., came in second among the top 10 Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour anglers to make the cut. Meanwhile, day two’s second-day, second-place finisher, Patrick Neu of Forestville, Wis., finished in first with a killer six-fish limit of 17 pounds, 7 ounces.
And they stayed atop the leader board even though thunderstorms struck in the morning, the temperatures dropped into the 30s and golf-ball-sized hail with powerful winds drilled them in the afternoon. Neu and Eshbaugh, secretive in the tricks of their respective trades, pulled high double-digit weights when the bite soured for most of the other competitors. All of the top 10, however, start anew on Saturday – which, of course, puts anyone in the hunt.
Still, it would be hard to bet against Neu, who is jigging, or Eshbaugh, who is handlining. As diametrically opposed as their techniques are, so, too, is the staying power each of them has on his spots. Neu, who has considerable experience with Illinois River saugers on another tournament circuit, currently has about five productive spots in his repertoire. On the other hand, Eshbaugh, who had never fished the river before, is grinding out big limits in an area just downstream of Negro Creek.
“It’s been a little bit different each day,” Neu says. “You can’t die doing the same thing from one day to another.”
If anything, Neu says he believes he might benefit from the cold, which is both expected to hold and is preventing the larger, more desirable female saugers from going on the spawn and no longer feeding. Then again, with the RCL format, the 10th-place finisher on day three goes into the finals with equal standing.
“It’s going to be anyone’s game,” Neu says. “The fish even turned off for me the way they did for a lot of guys in the top 20.”
Why go wireless?
In predictable fashion, Eshbaugh again put a six-fish limit in the boat by noon – and again by handlining. The decades-old river technique, with origins many attribute to the brawling 7-mph current of the Detroit River, scored 15 pounds, 1 ounce for Eshbaugh, who weighed his smallest bag of the tournament.
With ponderous lead weights of a pound or more when handlining, it’s possible to put small Rapala minnow baits in the walleye’s – in this case sauger’s – face when trolling. But while pulling the lures upstream is the way to go in heavy current, here on the slowly flowing Illinois, Eshbaugh is going downstream as well.
Eshbaugh has simply transferred his wire acumen from his home waters in Pennsylvania – the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers – to another place with his own personal wrinkles. What they are we don’t yet know.
While Eshbaugh came in near the top by “pulling wire,” as it’s called, Evinrude pro Eric Olson of Minneapolis squeaked past the cut, into 10th with 9 pounds, 11 ounces, doing the same thing. He did it, too, in the same area as Eshbaugh. Now Olson has to make a decision: handline on Saturday or run to the dam, where limits of saugers are perhaps more probable than anywhere else on the river. The catch? They just might not be as big.
As of now, Olson plans to handline first and see how the bite unfolds, then switch to jigging if necessary.
A mixed bag
The rest of the top 10 finishers relied on a mixed bag of techniques. Two prime examples are Mark Meravy, who came in eighth with 10 pounds, 5 ounces by using three-way rigs; and Ranger pro Carl Grunwaldt, who trolled into seventh with 10 pounds, 8 ounces on leadcore line and Rapala Shad Raps at speeds sometimes in excess of 3 mph.
Still another to head into competition tomorrow, John Kolinski of Menasha, Wis., got his sixth fish jigging with two rods at a time with both hair jigs and plastic bodies. Kolinski weighed 10 pounds, 2 ounces from a short stretch downstream of Negro Creek. The winning fish, it seems, are there. But will it last?
A co on the go
Whether the magic will last remains to be seen as well for co-angler John Solek of Indianapolis, last year’s RCL co-angler of the year. Solek made the top 10 in partnership with Eric Olson, but what was more remarkable was Solek’s incendiary rise from day one to day two that put him in the top-20 cut. After all, on day one Solek was mired in 120th place with 5 pounds and change. But after fishing with Eshbaugh on day two, Solek made the jump into the top 20.
Isn’t that, though, the beauty of the RCL format? As leader Patrick Neu says, tomorrow is anyone’s game.
Takeoff for the top 10 begins at 7 a.m. Saturday at the Spring Valley Boat Club.
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