The bigger, the better
All but three teams pull limit catches in the RCL on Erie. The catch? It takes an 8-pound average to break the top 20.
PORT CLINTON, Ohio – On the opening day of competition in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on Lake Erie, size mattered far more than numbers among the 156-boat field. In a stunning display of limit catches, all but three pro-and-co teams weighed five fish en route to more than 2 tons of fish from the planet’s most amazing walleye fishery.
Leading the crowd after day one is Evinrude pro Tom Brunz of Madison Lake, Minn., who sifted through more than 35 walleyes to cull down to 47 pounds, 5 ounces.
Sure enough, numbers weren’t the issue for the competitors. Weights in excess of 40 pounds, however, were another story, with only 13 of the pros able to crack that magic barrier.
Brunz did it about 20 miles from the launch at Catawba State Park in a small area he estimates at about three acres. Rather than scouting open water, Brunz concentrated on more precise breaklines and structure, as it’s called in angling parlance, to waylay doubles and triples that pushed his weight into the leader’s circle.
“I’m fishing structure, not fish that are out there roaming,” Brunz says. “So that should be a big advantage.”
That would be an advantage, Brunz says, because the fish are residents more likely to hold in the area than spirit off on an eastward migration.
Spinners, cranks and spoons
No doubt the fish were chomping on the first day, with a mix of spinners, crankbaits and even Jet Divers with spoons delivering limit catches. With the hot bite, fewer adjustments than ordinary were necessary, with colors and speed mattering little to Brunz. He did notice, though, that the walleyes moved deeper when the sun burned through morning overcast.
Deeper water also paid off for Lund pro Mike Gofron of Antioch, Ill., who stands in 10th place after trolling crankbaits with clip-on weights to plumb the depths well east of the launch in Ohio waters. To amass his 41-pound, 10-ounce limit, Gofron trolled the depths and benefited from the day’s light winds to spin around on a school of fish once he caught one, instead of having to motor back upwind and reset the lines, as is necessary in windy conditions.
Gofron says he also paid attention to water clarity, a key factor on Erie, preferring the slightly stained depths to the clearer shallows in the 20-foot range, where the walleyes were somewhat smaller.
“The closer to shore you get, the clearer the water is,” Gofron says. “But there’s a dirty stretch of water out there farther. “As soon as you get out there, you start marking the bait and catching the fish.”
Another top-20 angler in the same approximate area, though off to himself with only one other boat, was Danny Plautz of Muskego, Wis. Like Brunz, Plautz caught fish hand over fin, with 10 doubles, three triples and a quadruple on his four trolling rods. Plautz, too, was working crankbaits to bring in a limit of 40 pounds, 3 ounces, good for 14th place.
Almost two and a half tons
Following a day when 4820 pounds, 5 ounces of walleyes (yes, you read right) were brought to the scales, Thursday’s action should continue, with some adjustments perhaps necessary after night when rain and thunderstorms are forecast. But the second day’s weather should be kind, with five- to 15-mph winds expected, which will make motoring long distances and trolling with precision very doable.
The only question mark, it seems, is whether some of the same spots will hold up.
“I think the fish in my area are residents that are going to be there all the time,” Brunz says. “I don’t know if there are more coming. The only fly in the ointment is how long those fish will hold up in such a small area.”
It’s safe to say that any competitor in the top 60, with at least 33 pounds or more, is still in the hunt. Tack on a big bag in excess of 40 pounds on day two, and it should be possible to climb more than 60 places to qualify for tomorrow’s top-20 cut.
All in all, everything turned out better than expected on day one following scads of five-pounders during the pre-fishing period. Evidence? Try almost two and a half tons of walleyes on opening day out of Port Clinton when the 20th-place catch weighed 39 pounds, 1 ounce.
“We had trouble pre-fishing,” says Evinrude pro Tommy Skarlis of Walker, Minn. “I figured I’d go to two spots and grind it out.”
Grind it out Skarlis did for 39 pounds, 8 ounces, good for a 16th-place – a first-day performance that puts him within reach of the angler of the year title after top-20 finishes on the Illinois River and Lake Sharpe.
Thursday’s launch starts at 7 a.m. at Catawba State Park.
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