RCL Tour Championship anticipation

With the toughest conditions in recent memory, the walleyes are keeping the field waiting

RED WING, Minn. – In anticipation of the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour Championship on the Mississippi River, many of the most seasoned walleye pros on the planet are finding the river in its worst mood ever. The culprits: low current flow, a glut of baitfish and the muddiest fall water in recent memory on the upper stretches of the Big Muddy.

Even so, with 221 of pros and co-anglers in the fray, more than a few are bound to crack the code to weigh in limits when the field is winnowed down Thursday to 12 semifinalists. Over the first two days of competition starting Wednesday, there should be tough fishing when patterns have been difficult to establish in the practice period.

“I don’t think the fish are in the river in any numbers,” says longtime Lund pro Gary Roach of Merrifield, Minn. “We’ve tried shallow and deep, and I know we’ve worked hard for not much.”

Working hard for not much has been the common refrain among the anglers on the fringe of October, when times are not normally so tough. This year is different, though, following a summer of little rain, a boom in shad populations and low, slow current that stays turbid when barge traffic roils the banks when little or now flow is present to whisk the sediment downriver. Spike the punch with a late, sudden cold snap in the last week, and the big fall bite is on hold for at least another few weeks.

“We’ve got to contend with massive amounts of baitfish and changing seasons,” says powerhouse Lund pro Mike Gofron of Antioch, Ill., the second-place finisher in last year’s championship held out of Red Wing. “It started getting cold up here less than a week ago, so the fish are on the move. And with less current, the fish are able to go wherever they want to. So you’re not going to have big concentrations of fish.”

Too much food, too little current

Outside of spring and late fall, the Mississippi River is seldom host to a freewheeling bite where limits come easily. It is a place that always demands technical proficiency to work wing dams, rock jetties that divert current into the main channel; explore back channels, where running aground is commonplace; and troll with leadcore line and crankbaits to cover water for scattered walleyes and saugers.

What’s more, the playing field for this week’s tournament contains massive amounts of water within the boundaries from the mouth of the St. Croix River at the top of Pool 3 all the way down to the Alma Dam at the far downstream end of Pool 4. Another factor to contend with is sizable Lake Pepin, a widening in the river that normally turns out walleyes and saugers with regularity but has so far been plagued with the shad explosion.

Why should the fish feed on artificial lures, the thinking goes, when Mother Nature has supplied a massive buffet of her own?

“When you run across the lake, it’s like a salad shooter is spitting out shad behind your motor,” says Lund pro Mark Courts of Harris, Minn., who has fished the river for more than 15 years. “The fish are staging in the lake, but there’s a ton of bait in front of their faces. So there’s no reason for them to move into the river.”

And no reason for them to feed on anything but shad. Confounding the field even further is the lack of current, since current flow concentrates bait and, therefore, walleyes on strategic current breaks.

A case in point was last year’s river conditions, when Gofron finished second and Crestliner pro Bruce Samson won the event on clearly delineated current breaks in Buffalo Slough, a backwater on Pool 3. The Pool 3 of new, however, has but a trickle of current, slack water that allows the walleyes to roam anywhere they please. Wing dams as well have been far less productive than usual, for sufficient current to concentrate the fish in front of them is nowhere to be found.

“Rivers are controlled by human beings and their gates at the dams and Mother Nature and her floods,” Roach says. “They are always temperamental. The lack of current flow isn’t putting the baitfish in places you would normally expect them.”

`The worst bite ever’?

Nevertheless, hope springs eternal – or at least it will over the next couple of days – that some sort of turnaround will occur. Ranger pro John Campbell of Marco Island, Fla., a tournament pro with more than 15 years of experience, ventures that the Mississippi of the last week is “maybe the toughest bite ever.”

At this point, it seems, all Campbell and company can try to do is cobble together a pattern that will produce five fish over the legal limit of 15 inches in a no-cull tournament (although some wiggle room is provided by tournament rules allowing the pro-and-co teams to put eight fish in the livewell and weigh five of them).

Whether or not conditions change to inspire the bite remains to be seen.

“Even though the last week has been cold, it’s been so sudden,” Campbell says. “So the classic fall bite hasn’t happened yet. And because the water is so low, the fish can go anywhere they want.

“What would be good at this point would be some stable, warm weather, but not hot weather. Now that the water temperature has been drilled down, everything could turn on a dime with some south wind. But even some wind might not be enough to save us.”

A change for the better, however unlikely, probably won’t be enough to save the majority of the field in an epic tournament where the winner could take home up to $400,000. Still, someone is going to unravel the riddle to get the fish and win. Someone always does, even if the Mississippi between Minnesota and Wisconsin is at its most temperamental ever.

Wednesday’s takeoff begins at 7 a.m. Central time at Treasure Island Resort and Casino.