Wilson on walleyes at Lake Sharpe
Anglers set sights on final day of RCL Tour competition
PIERRE, S.D. – Even with a paucity of current in the morning and the added company of locals throughout the day, the pro-and-co teams that remained within a few miles of the Oahe Dam in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on Lake Sharpe were able to focus on a combination of precise spots and pinpoint presentation to nab the bigger fish over 18 inches necessary to make the competitive top-10 cut.
Leading the way, in first place with 12 pounds, 10 ounces, is Ranger pro Joe Wilson of Rollingstone, Minn., a fourth-place finisher in last year’s RCL Championship on the Mississippi River.
“We’re fishing a shelf, and instead of going on top of the flat, we’re going to the edge where the current is washing in,” Wilson says. “I think the fish are up there at night to spawn, and as long as the light penetration is low and the pressure is light, they stick up there.”
Wilson says he had his six weigh fish in the box by 9 a.m. before the bite dwindled. The fish Wilson did catch came from a few feet of slack water, in eddies, well shallower than the local competition.
In a quirk of tournament fate – and an instance of being on the right fish – the day’s second-place finisher, Crestliner pro Jeff Koester of Brookville, Ind., weighed an 11-pound, 10-ounce limit in the same neighborhood. But Koester had to delve into his bag of tricks to counter the slow flow of current generated from the dam first thing in the morning.
Koester started working the shallows downstream of the Bad River with 1/16th-ounce jigs but goosed his trolling motor a touch upstream to give the jig and minnow a bit of a swing that triggered the walleyes over 18 inches. In this tournament on the Missouri River, only two fish over 18 inches are allowed, and the rest must be between the legal minimum of 15 inches and 18 inches. No culling, or upgrading of fish, is allowed either – once a fish goes in the livewell, it must be kept.
“I figured out today that the fish want the jig coming across on the swing,” Koester says. “So I have to pull upstream to force the jig to swing back. The fish want that bait working along as opposed to lagging.”
Northward bound
Even the competitors who went for a long run caught their best fish upstream early or late in the day. Among them was sixth-place Lund pro Jim Klick of White Bear Lake, Minn., and ninth-place Yamaha pro Shannon Kehl of Menoken, N.D. Klick, for instance, returned from far downstream to catch two final fish with five minutes to go. Meanwhile, Kehl, who ran out of gas yesterday while putting his boat on the trailer after a 100-mile roundtrip, nabbed one 18-inch-plus walleye and one under 18 inches upstream before spiriting off south on another epic run. Klick weighed 10 pounds, 10 ounces; Kehl, 10 pounds, 3 ounces.
“Tomorrow I’m staying up here,” Kehl says. “I don’t think there’s anybody left who’s fishing south.”
Besides, Saturday’s weather forecasts are calling for 35-mph winds with even more powerful gusts, virtually ruling out bone-jarring rides far south in the reservoir.
Although the winds were minimal today, the sizable fish over 18 inches necessary to make the cut never materialized down around West Bend, a 50-mile run from the takeoff at Downs Marina. Lund pro Mark Martin of Twin Lake, Mich., finished 12th with a 9-pound, 11-ounce limit. Likewise, Evinrude pro Tommy Skarlis of Walker, Minn., failed to make the cut down south, landing in 18th place with five fish for 7 pounds, 9 ounces.
“The bigger fish just weren’t there anymore,” Martin says. “Heck, the numbers and the size weren’t there anymore. It surprised me because even once we started whacking a few, the 20-inchers never showed up.”
Same thing, different day
The last 10 teams standing are planning to return to their productive spots in the upstream reaches of the reservoir, where the water temperatures have hovered at 43 degrees for the last week and have delayed the walleyes from spawning. Hence the better fish, though perhaps not the prodigious numbers, are females that are still packed with eggs and, therefore, weigh more.
“I’m going to go back in there and grind it out as long as I feel there’s the ability to catch fish,” Wilson says. “Once I get one in the box over 18 inches, the next is going to have to be over 20 inches.”
Indeed, Lake Sharpe, with its slot limit and no-cull regulations, is a place in which difficult decisions must be made. Pitch back an 18-plus early in the day and you might never catch another before the 3 p.m. weigh-in. In such a tricky situation, good fortune plays a role as well.
“You have to be lucky with one big fish,” Wilson says. “But you have to be consistent, too.”
Tomorrow’s takeoff for the top 10 starts at 7 a.m. at Downs Marina in Pierre.
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