Migrating walleyes make for difficult decisions in RCL’s opening day on Erie
PORT CLINTON, Ohio – After almost a week’s worth of preparation for the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on Lake Erie, it’s time for the pros to settle on their opening-morning destinations and details of presentation in a continuously changing bite.
Entering the first day of competition, three distinct locations were emerging among the 157-boat field: north to Canada, around the Bass Islands, and east to Vermilion and Lorain, Ohio. Even so, yesterday’s patterns and predilections from the final hours of pre-fishing might not hold for long, with here-today-gone-tomorrow walleyes in transition from spring to summer patterns.
“In my opinion, the bite has changed every two days,” says Lund pro Rick Cole of Frankton, Ind. “The fish are moving. When you’re in ’em, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do. Then they leave. It’s a combination of the water temperature and the bait movement.”
In other words, just when the pros have thought they have the fish pegged, they have to hatch a plan all over again. Even the competitors who are in position to make the cut after day two may need to start anew miles away or with different techniques in the march toward the finals.
“I think Lorain is going to get better because the fish are going that way,” Cole says. “The guy who can adjust is going to win. You better be able to troll Dipsys by Saturday.”
Cole is referring not only to Luhr-Jensen Dispsy Divers – directional diving planes that take spinners, crankbaits and spoons down to trolling depths and, depending on their settings, off to the sides of the boat – but also to the eastward migration of Erie’s walleye schools with the onset of summer.
Dipsys ahead of spoons are a favored technique among trollers in the Ohio waters up to 40 miles from the launch in Port Clinton. Nevertheless, a spinner-and-night-crawler pattern has improved of late around the Bass Islands and in Canadian waters. The reason is water temperatures entering the 60s, when spinners behind planer boards for suspended fish or behind bottom bouncers for low-lying walleyes start to take off.
Without boundaries in the RCL, something of a wildcard in the equation is Canadian water.
“No [tournament] has ever gone to Canada,” says Lund pro Greg Yarbrough of White Lake, Mich. “Most of the fish there are untouched, and we have a lot less experience over there. I’m going to see how it goes in the first hour and a half. Then I have another spot in Canada I’ll hit on the way back.”
Considering the distances involved – about 20 miles to prime Canadian waters and up to 40 miles toward Lorain in Ohio waters – time will be of the essence when long runs are involved. After all, you can’t catch walleyes motoring from spot to spot at 50 mph when all lines are out of the water.
Today’s weigh-in starts at 3 p.m. at Waterworks Park in downtown Port Clinton.
Day-one links: