Hero among zeroes
Pulling one of two day-one limits, river rat Steve Lotz rises to top in RCL Tour on volatile Illinois River
SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – If records were kept for such a thing, opening day of the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on the Illinois River might go down in the annals of futility. Among 170 pro-and-co teams, 114 zeroed and 37 turned in single fish at the scales.
Credit where credit is due, then, goes to Steve Lotz of Lena, Ill., one of two pros to deliver a five-fish limit. Lotz’s was good for 12 pounds, 14 ounces, good for the lead in incredibly difficult conditions where far more competitors were beset by zeroes than caught fish.
“Sometimes a guy gets lucky,” says an understated Lotz. “And that was me today.”
What separated Lotz from all others was river acumen accumulated over the last 15 years and a precise spot that held fish that would feed when the Illinois was up more than 8 feet from normal pool and sullied with mud and debris that made fishing even more painstaking.
“Current breaks are definitely a must,” Lotz says. “So is clean water if you can find it.
“Sauger are a different breed. They like current. Walleye would just as soon get out of it.”
One vs. five
If one is said to be the loneliest number, a solitary walleye – albeit a monster – for Ranger pro Mike Lacher of Bismarck, N.D., boosted him to 11th place. The rarity on the Illinois, where sauger rule the turbid underworld, was in fact the outcome of an intentional strategy by Lacher, who pitched jigs with live bait shallow, where walleye go in high water.
“I’m going to target walleye from here on out,” Lacher says. “I haven’t been able to catch a sauger all week.”
On the other hand, the only other limit weighed on day one was that of Ranger pro Pete Harsh of Sauk Centre, Minn., who grinded it out in one spot for six bite, catching five of them.
“I’ve got one spot about the size of this stage I sat on all day,” Harsh told the crowd gathered in the overcast chill of late March in central Illinois. “If I don’t have any company, I might get five again.”
Considering the almost impossible conditions, with high water and a surfeit of crud washing downstream, four fish was no small accomplishment. That’s precisely what Ranger pro John Campbell of Marco Island, Fla., scratched out in the course of a long, laborious tournament day. Campbell, a jigger extraordinaire, says the secret to his success – 8 pounds, 8 ounces, to be precise – was exactitude in the face of adversity.
“You’ve got to slow down and let them look at it,” says Campbell, who fished bright jigs that would stand out in the murk. “They’ve got a strike zone of about five inches. I was fishing micro spots. The fish were in a little area half the size of the boat.”
Better? You bet
As it stands after one day, 20th place was nailed down with a single sauger, the catch of Scott Steil of Fort Pierre, S.D., with 4 pounds.
While few of the leaders are forthcoming with insight into the ways they caught their fish, remaining every bit as closemouthed as the temperamental sauger, one exception is Lund pro Mark Martin of Twin Lake, Mich. Martin, who is in 15th and has a reasonable chance of the top-20 cut after another day, says he worked three-way rigs upstream to catch a pair of sauger weighing 4 pounds, 13 ounces, losing a couple of others.
The rig Martin employed had a big jig on the bottom with Berkley Power Bait and a minnow; on a trailing line he ran a single Daiichi hook with a minnow. Curiously, each of the hooks Martin rigged weedless with plastic Power Bait – Texas style in angling parlance.
And Martin says his expectations are for improvement on Thursday.
“The water dropped a foot by the end of the day and the debris started to clean up,” Martin says. “I think the fishing will be better if the water gets even cleaner Wednesday because you can fish without worrying about leaves, twigs, cornstalks and green stuff on your lures all the time.”
Even if fishing should be pretty darned good as water drops and clears for the Saturday finals, almost anyone, even the legion of zeroes, has a chance at the top 20 with a few fish on day two. After all, when times are tough all over, it doesn’t take much to make your move.
Thursday’s takeoff takes place at 7 a.m. Central at the Spring Valley Boat Club.