Crucial quarter pound

Giachetto wins RCL Tour event on Illinois River by slight margin despite Courts’ major move

SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – In a down-to-the-wire weigh-in ultimately separated by a mere 4 ounces, in spite of a challenger with a monster sack anchored by the extraordinary walleye exceeding 5 pounds, local Tom Giachetto of Ladd prevailed in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on the Illinois River not only because of a steady 11-pound, 12-ounce limit Saturday but also by dint of his banner performance a day earlier.

Benefiting from a new RCL rule change, Giachetto carried over his weight of 15 pounds – and a 2-pound lead – from the semifinals rather than starting all over on Saturday from zero in last year’s fashion. Ultimately it was enough to withstand a hard charge by Lund pro Marc Courts of Harris, Minn., who accented his 14-pound, 1-ounce catch with an exceedingly uncommon large walleye in a fishery dominated by sauger, the walleye’s blotchy, tubular relative.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it, especially after seeing that big fish,” says Giachetto, winner of $50,000 and a Lund boat with an Evinrude motor.

Giachetto, who lives in about 15 minutes from the river, had in his repertoire the knowledge of where to fish in brutally high water, which started after heavy rains in Chicago a week ago and carried over into the tournament, punishing the field of 170 boats by limiting them to 54 with fish on day one (and 118 zeroes), let alone a meager two limits. The difficulty even limited Ladd to 2 pounds, 10 ounces on opening day, but then he improved with a 13-pound, 5-ounce limit en route to his ultimate triumph. It turns out Giachetto knew the river and the specific area on an inside bend of the river well enough to go to it when times were tough.

There, just downstream from a string of barges at Peru, Giachetto pulled three-way rigs upstream with a bowmount electric motor. On the three-way’s dropper, Giachetto tied a white 5/8th-ounce jig to stand out in the stained water and a pink hook baited with a minnow on a trailer from a three-way swivel. “I jig a lot out here, and I always use pink,” Giachetto says.

upstream course with the ultimate third-place co-angler, Dave Dugall of

Highland, Mich.” border=”1″ align=”right” />With improving conditions and clearing water, Giachetto adjusted by following the fish deeper over a bottom scattered with rocks and easing alongside empty barge parking spots that provided a slight drop-off that gave the sauger sanctuary.

“They kept moving out deeper, and I ended up moving from 8 to 13 feet from the start of the tournament,” Giachetto says.

In your face, sauger

A fair share of the final day’s suspense was provided by Courts, who tallied the big bag of the day in spite of a wind that late in the day gusted to 35 mph.

“With the wind as brisk as it was, I had to back off on my electric motor to keep the speed down, which is what the fish wanted,” Courts says.

He, too, slid out from the 8.6 feet that paid off for him two days ago to his ultimate destination in 13 to 14 feet. That’s where Courts eased three-way rigs upstream with pink or orange 1-ounce jigs on the bottom trailed by a pink hook and either a partial night crawler or a minnow. And that’s where Courts, in the same vicinity of sixth place Ranger pro Todd Riley of Amery, Wis., who weighed a limit for 12 pounds, 6 ounces, second best of the day but not enough after a 4-pound, 8-ounce deficit from Friday.

Riley made it as far as he did by switching from vertical jigging after a single fish on day one to the same technique as the others, pulling three-ways upstream.

“You could catch the fish jigging but the bite was so lethargic,” Riley says. “But when you’re pulling it puts the bait in their face 10 times longer.”

Handiwork

Coming close, with a highly admirable third place, was hardcore handliner Rick LaCourse of Port Clinton, Ohio, who weighed a limit for 12 pounds, 5 ounces. LaCourse, who says he learned the technique from old-timers on the Detroit River three decades ago, employs spring-loaded reels (without rods) and 60-pound wire cable connected to a 1 1/4-pound weight.

From a shank, a piece of wire above the weight to provide connections for leaders, LaCourse ran two leaders-one on the bottom 15 feet long, another above it of 30 feet. They were the optimum lengths, LaCourse says, for the given amount of current.

For his baits LaCourse opted for a No. 7 Rapala Original Minnow on the bottom, a No. 7 custom-painted pink on top. To work them, LaCourse customarily trolls with a gas auxiliary motor, tacking in the current to keep the lures in front of the fish, a method that had him culling by 8 a.m. en route to at least two dozen fish.

LaCourse, of course

In a curious LaCourse connection, the seventh-place co-angler, Carolyn Brandon of Greenville, Ohio, started fishing more than 20 years ago – with LaCourse, when he was a charter captain on Lake Erie.

“He turned pro and then I didn’t see him again until I started fishing tournaments,” Brandon says. “I did tournament fishing because it’s a challenge.”

A challenge? Yes. A learning experience? Not quite. Traveling with pro angler Jeff Koester, a friend living in Brookville, Ind., Brandon is well versed in, among other techniques, three-way rigging and handlining, each of which she spent doing for two days on the Illinois River.

Brandon, who led in the semifinals after fishing with Giachetto, slipped to seventh with three fish caught with 2002 Angler of the Year Jason Przekurat of Stevens Point, Wis. Taking the co-angler crown, meanwhile, was Thomas Ebi of Dearborn, Mich.

Through it all, the cos and the pros faced problematic conditions on the Illinois River that ameliorated with dry weather and clearing water. In the end, it was Tom Giachetto who solved the river’s riddle better than anyone else, better than Courts, LaCourse et al., coming up big with a crucial quarter pound when it counted.