Lighter last day at RCL Tour season opener

Weights go down late in game, but a fair-to-middling limit for Kolinski trumps trollers under insufferable, unseasonable conditions

SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – In the weather department, the first Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event of 2003 on the Illinois River had it all: subfreezing cold, snow, pouring rain, summerlike heat, thunder, lightning, more torrential rains and more bitter cold. The tourney also saw its 165-boat field try every plausible method: handlining, trolling with leadcore line and crankbaits, three-way rigging, casting jigs and vertical jigging.

In the end, all of the fish en route to John Kolinski’s $80,000 win – four days of six-sauger limits – came from vertical jigging as cold fell and the river level rose late in the game in Spring Valley. With an extra foot or two of water whisking down the Illinois on day four, debris and garbage washed downstream with the additional current, the water temperature slipped to 51 degrees, the spawn neared and the saugers’ mood soured.

“It will be the trollers or the handliners (who win),” predicted Ranger pro Carl Grunwaldt, who ultimately finished sixth by trolling leadcore line with No. 5 Rapala Shad Raps. “The jiggers – forget about them. You can take that to the bank.”

Quite to the contrary, Kolinski, a Menasha, Wis., pro, quit trolling a couple of hours into day four and returned to vertical jigging to take a limit weighing 10 pounds, 15 ounces to the weigh-in, a new Lund boat back home and a $50,000 check to the bank. In doing so, Kolinski eked out a light limit, one of four on the final day, when six fish weighing in the teens never materialized under the changing, increasingly fickle conditions.

When the going gets tough …

If only four of 10 final-day competitors could manage limits, it was a far cry from day one, when 91 of the top 101 places brought six fish to the scales. Kolinski’s four-day results are emblematic of the strong start to the tournament and the much weaker end. To wit, Kolinski had put himself in 10th on day one with 14 pounds, 8 ounces; had jumped to third on day two with the momentum of 15 pounds, 6 ounces; and then had narrowly made the top 10 on day three, in ninth, with 10 pounds, 2 ounces.

Kolinski essentially saved the best for last, with 10 pounds, 15 ounces, a limit that without the funky final-day bite would have been nowhere near the top. But when high, muddy water and cold hindered the action for rest of the field, it was just what Kolinski needed to triumph over trollers who had been incredibly consistent while the consummate jigger had been sadly on the slide.

The downward spiral, however, extended to the trollers who either handlined or pulled leadcore with shad baits. “I told myself I was going to live or die with the ‘core,” Grunwaldt says. “Today I died with the ‘core.”

Plan B

Kolinski was prepared to die with the jig bite after a morning run at handlining, although he was astute enough to change his game plan when he got off the banks, on the water and into early trouble.

“I don’t think I made any mistakes, and I don’t think I made a mistake handlining in the morning,” Kolinski says. “But you couldn’t go 30 yards without picking up debris on your lines.”

If mistake-free fishing is the hallmark of all competitors who end up in the winner’s circle, Kolinski and co-angler champion Dan Miller of Madison, Wis., missed bites but did not lose any of the six fish they hooked, most of which came on stingers. With plenty of river experience on the Illinois and elsewhere, Kolinski relied on hair jigs in a bright, nearly fluorescent lime as well as orange – there’s something about hair, Kolinski says, for saugers in rivers. To work the 13- to 15-foot depths from the Route 39 bridge downstream to a railroad bridge, Kolinski depended on quarter-ounce jigs, at times using a piece of Berkley Power Bait with a truncated tail in the hopes of eliminating many of the short strikes.

While the most productive area for most qualifiers within the top 20 was the Negro Creek area, the stretch of river that had surrendered such solid weights the first two days and for a limited few on day three went stone cold with the weather on the final day of competition. Perhaps it was because a lot of the best fish had already been caught. Perhaps it was because the saugers were heading upstream to spawn. Perhaps it was because of the colder water and increased current laden with sticks, grass and whatnot.

Whatever the reason, Kolinski left in the nick of time, reaching his winning spot by midday and catching his fish before a barge went through and, with its engines revving on a turn into the bend Kolinski was jigging, knocking them off the feed.

“A barge came by and shut the bite down,” says Kolinski’s partner, Dan Miller. “We got a few bites after that, but not much.”

Round two awaits

Next up for Kolinski and crew is Lake Sharpe in Pierre, S.D., from April 30 to May 5. That’s where and when the RCL competitors will encounter an entirely different scenario of difficult decisions in a no-cull, slot-limit tournament. Once you put a walleye in the livewell, you can’t release it later in favor of a larger one. And only two of a six-fish limit can stretch beyond 18 inches.

Mistake-free fishing? Believe it or not, it’s going to be that much more dicey and difficult on the Missouri River reservoir.