Summer of slam
Walter wins RCL Tour event on Devils Lake with dominating performance in final qualifying event
DEVILS LAKE, N.D. – On the first day of summer and the last day of competition in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour event on Devils Lake, Crestliner pro Rick Walter of Casper, Wyo., turned in another incendiary performance to lead for the fourth, final and most important day of all.
With a five-fish limit weighing 24 pounds, 8 ounces, Walter outpaced his closest competitor, Kevin Reinhardt of Glenrock, Wyo., by exactly 7 pounds to claim a convincing victory worth $50,000 in cash and a new Crestliner boat.
Regardless of the weather – flat calm on the first day and high winds the rest of the time – Walter was the only pro to manage limits in excess of 20 pounds on every day of the tournament. Walter’s victory seems attributable to his finding the right spot that paid off with serious weight no matter the wind and for all four days.
“I did well in there on the calm day, too,” Walter says. “More than anything, the true test of the spot was that to forage stayed in there.”
Although the weedy area in Pelican Lake, an adjunct of Devils flooded in the last decade with record rainfall, was shallow 4 to 5 feet, Walter says he occasionally caught a small white bass or walleye not much larger than the No. 5 blue-holographic Rapala Shad Rap he was casting. To accent the bait, Walter painted the belly with a strip of orange for extra color.
Best of the rest
The rest of the competition, despite having excellent tournaments to outpace 186 other anglers, couldn’t quite measure up to Walter when it counted. The second-place finisher was Reinhart, and finishing fifth was Ranger pro John Campbell of Marco Island, Fla., with 11 pounds, 6 ounces.
“We couldn’t get the big fish to go,” Campbell says. “I’m not sure there were any of them left. I might have cleaned them out yesterday.”
Campbell fished a pattern similar to Walter’s, casting No. 5 Rapala Shad Raps around weeds and flooded timber, some of the time in Pelican Lake within a half-mile of Walter. Ultimately, Campbell and the rest of the crew came up short.
One of them was Friday’s second-place finisher, Lund pro Mark Courts of Harris, Minn., who managed three fish for 6 pounds, 2 ounces and eighth place. And while most of the successful pros who worked slip bobbers did so with jigs and leeches tight to bottom, Courts had had an impressive showing in 8 feet of water with pink colored hooks and half night crawlers set 2 feet off bottom.
`The right bites’
Walter’s pattern throughout the competition was to catch his fish early and often, and again he delivered in short order in a no-cull tournament in which fish that were put in the livewell had to stay there without being upgraded. On Saturday, Walter made his run to Pelican Lake in 20-mph winds by 8 a.m., then proceeded to have his winning weight in the box by 11 a.m.
His catch included his smallest fish of 22 inches and the biggest of about 27. But even for Walter, the action was somewhat diminished.
“We didn’t get many bites today, but they were the right bites,” Walter says.
News flash
In other RCL news, Angler of the Year Jason Przekurat – who cinched the title Friday by advancing to the finals – finished 10th with one fish for 3 pounds, 13 ounces.
Then, in an interesting and unexpected development, the ninth-place pro at Devils, Ranger pro Joe Whitten of Toledo, tied with Evinrude pro Tommy Skarlis of Walker, Minn., for second in the points standing for Angler of the Year.
Meanwhile, Mike Bentz of Brookville, Ind., took home the title in the Co-angler Division.
The final event of the year is the RCL Championship, scheduled for Oct. 2-4 on the Mississippi River near Redwing, Minn., where the first-place pro could win $400,000.
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