North of the border
Top weights come from Canada in RCL on Erie, Brunz cruises into day-two lead
PORT CLINTON, Ohio – After two days with crazy numbers of fish weighed in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on Lake Erie, the top 20 rose with shrewd decision making that steered them to the larger pods of walleyes. Sharp choices also put the proper offerings in front of the top anglers to trigger the right bites to bring in fish in excess of 7 pounds.
Thus far, the Lake Erie walleyefest constitutes 153 five-fish limits on the opener and 152 on the second day of competition.
The first day’s leader, Evinrude pro Tom Brunz of Madison Lake, Wis., repeated the feat with 38 pounds, 12 ounce to stay atop the 156-boat field. Like many of the top 20, Brunz is working Canadian waters, trolling spinner rigs with night crawlers behind planer boards for suspended fish.
Fresh fish
Some competition in Brunz’s area, however, seems to be winnowing down the numbers of walleyes, which necessitated a change of locations to stay ahead of the crowd.
“I’m afraid my primary spot is getting thinned out,” say Brunz, who notes that the stretch is about the length of two football fields. “I think I’m going to start there and then search for some fresh fish.”
As in any tournament, but particularly in one where the anglers are after schools of notoriously nomadic Great Lakes walleyes, it’s a wonder whether the right fish will be there tomorrow.
After a Lake Sharpe tournament in the top 10, another angler, Lund pro Jim Klick of White Bear Lake, Minn., appears to be poised to do it again, finishing in sixth with a two-day total of 79 pounds, 10 ounces. Also on Klick’s side is plenty of Erie experience, most notably a victory in the first RCL held here in 2001.
Klick, too, is trolling Canadian waters off of Pelee Island with spinner rigs behind planer boards, running 1 1/2-ounce egg sinkers and putting them 30 to 60 feet behind the boards. His blades of choice incorporate a mix of colors, from perch to rainbow trout to gold and chartreuse and orange.
Although Klick’s best depths are 24 to 28 feet of water, he says he prefers to keep things simple – and his mind clear – in a tournament where rumors fly and too many competitors are catching snippets of info through the grapevine that unsettle them.
“I just go out and troll,” Klick says. “Everybody else is worried about this guy and that.”
Spinnerisms
A couple of other anglers in Klick’s Canadian vicinity are 19th-place Lund pro Andy Kuffer of Fair Haven, Mich., and 20th-place Yamaha pro Greg Yarbrough of White Lake, Mich. They say they are marking few fish and little bait on electronics, but when they do, the walleyes are biting.
Both are pulling spinners with custom-made blades of Kuffer’s, which he creates for his nascent tackle company, Good Tackle. What’s more, Kuffer and Yarbrough are running a pair of spinners behind planer boards and another pair behind 3-ounce bottom bouncers to dredge bottom.
“I’m not seeing any fish, but I’m catching them,” Kuffer says. “They’re aggressive. And there are no baitfish there, but still I was able to catch 20 fish over 5 pounds.”
Kuffer says his key color when the sun’s out is a holographic chrome blade with purple – perhaps a representation of baitfish when few are in the vicinity.
Perhaps one reason the fish are still relatively far west in Lake Erie, instead of farther east toward Ohio and Erie’s Eastern Basin, is the cold, nasty spring that has prefaced the warm, calm weather of recent days. Or so says Yamaha pro Shannon Kehl of Menoken, N.D., in 11th with 78 pounds, 6 ounces.
“I think they’re on their way east,” Kehl says. “They’re moving. They’re still a little bit behind from previous years.”
But while the likes of Kuffer and Yarbrough have two lines out for bottom-cruising walleyes, Kehl has his up high in the water column, within the top 10 feet as the day progresses.
To stay one step ahead of the fish – and the rest of the anglers who have made it to the semifinals – the competitors who remain will have to be able to abandon one spot in favor of another if necessary. The spinner bite is on, but the location could change daily.
One wildcard for the future – for Saturday, in particular – is a forecast with high winds and thunderstorms. Which is to say, the pros who are still in it had better get while the getting’s good.
Friday’s takeoff begins at 7 a.m. at Catawba State Park.
Click here for a preview of day three.
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