Jig (or rig or troll) another day

Best conditions yet for RCL Tour on Illinois River should yield banner weigh-in; but how will they do it?

SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – Entering the semifinals of the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on the Illinois River, the sun is shining. The water is dropping and clearing. In other words, it’s perfect.

Well, it’s perfect compared to the cruelty of day one, when 114 of 170 teams zeroed in the Mud Bowl of the roiling river. Now, with a little bit of clarity and with refined patterns by the top 20, things are looking up for the best weigh-in, with the most weights in the double digits, so far.

Breaking out after a day-one zero with a five-fish, seventh-place limit of 15 pounds, 12 ounces, one of 12 limits on day two after just two a day earlier, was Ranger pro Rick LaCourse of Port Clinton, Ohio. The inveterate handliner is trolling weights in excess of one pound on wire line, without rods, with monofilament leaders trailing Rapala Original minnowbaits.

“Handlining is still the best method down here,” says LaCourse, partial to his pet method. “And I found slack water where the sauger are moving up to spawn, and the water has cleared up to give them enough visibility to see the baits. And today it’s going to clear even more.

“The sun helps somewhat, but it’s not a prerequisite. It does change a little bit of my color selection.”

That’s why, with Thursday’s sun, LaCourse says he found the fish, all 19 he caught, preferred chartreuse and orange minnowbaits.

But that’s not to single out handlining as the odds-on favorite in the campaign for the finals. Besides handliners, there’s a fair share of riggers pulling three ways and jiggers doing the vertical program as well. For three-way rigs, a number of the leaders are easing upstream with big, 1-ounce jigs with Berkley Power Bait for color and scent as well as a trailing hook off another leader from the three-way swivel to a colored hook or a hook with a piece of Berkley plastic and a minnow. Among them are second-place Lund pro Mark Courts of Harris, Minn.; 13th-place Lund pro Mike Gofron of Antioch, Ill.; and 16th-place Lund pro Mark Martin of Twin Lake, Mich. (All, of course, start from scratch at zero on day three.)

Vertical jigging is another potential winner, the technique used a year ago by champ John Kolinski of Greenville, Wis. To be sure, any of the aforementioned patterns is a potential knockout with the right adjustments needed with the ever-changing conditions.

“The biggest thing right now is you’ve got five or six rig fishermen and five or six jig fishermen that are going to be able to beat anyone on this river,” says Ranger pro Tommy Skarlis of Walker, Minn., a jigger himself who finished in the top 20 here a year ago. “The handliners are the least of my worries. With the water dropping and the fish moving around, it’s going to be the angler who adjusts who comes out on top of the pack.”

Coming out on top of the pack Friday is going to take limits, not two or three decent fish that cut the muster a day earlier. Just how many will be weighed? Find out not long after the top 20 return at 3 p.m. Central to the Spring Valley Boat Club and make their way to the weigh-in at the Wal-Mart at 1650 38th St. in Peru, about a quarter-mile south of Interstate 80 from exit 75.

Friday’s conditions

Sunrise: 5:37 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 39 degrees

Expected high temperature: upper 50s

Water temperature: 52-56 degrees

Wind: from the northwest at 14 mph

Relative humidity: 70 percent

Day’s outlook: sunny; northwest winds at 10-15 mph