Co-angler education

RCL Tour co-anglers sign up to fish and receive priceless instruction from the masters

Twentieth among co-anglers in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour qualifying event on the Illinois River: $900. Twenty-eighth on Devils Lake: $700. Sixth on Lake Sharpe: $3,000. Co-angler of the Year for 2003: priceless.

For Mike Bentz, a dentist who lives and works in Brookville, Ind., winning the top spot among co-anglers in last year’s RCL Tour campaign earned him not only a new Crestliner boat and $2,000 but also the satisfaction of time on the water and a contribution to a partnership with a mutually beneficial outcome.

“My main motivation (for fishing as a co-angler) is that I like to fish but don’t take the time to go fishing,” Bentz said. “I do it as a stress relief from the office, and I count down the days until pre-fishing and the tournament. The co-angler/pro relationship is one of those things where if there’s a good rapport from the beginning, you’re going to catch fish.”

Riding (and fishing) shotgun has its rewards for the co-anglers who sign up to fish the RCL Tour – tournaments where two days of competition for the top-20 cut is guaranteed, and crunch time of the third and fourth days is a very real possibility that depends on performance. Successful co-anglers like Bentz are able to take home more than a few bucks and, possibly, a brand-new boat when fishing for dollars. Beyond the money and a fair amount of glory, they reel in valuable walleye wisdom by teaming up with the masters. What the “cos” get out of it is productive recreational angling, or possibly a steppingstone to the next level of competition where they wind up behind the wheel.

Enlightenment

For Bentz, an accomplished angler in his own right thanks to extensive pre-fishing time with Crestliner pro and friend Jeff Koester, the random pairings with the pros have been enlightening. A case in point was a day for him on Devils Lake with Crestliner pro Scott Fairbairn of Hager City, Wis.

“I loved fishing with Scott,” Bentz said. “He explains things so well that it seems like you’re down in the water watching the fish and what’s going on.”

For Fairbairn, how he works with his partner depends on an evaluation process that helps him ascertain how much help or instruction his co-angler needs.

“The partners are critical to our success, and what I have to figure out when I meet the person I’m going to be fishing with for the day is what his skill level is,” Fairbairn said. “Some of them have very little fishing experience. Some have a lot.

“The more fishing knowledge a person has influences the kind of language and terminology I can use in explaining the small refinements that experienced anglers can pick up on.”

The instruction Fairbairn gave Bentz was both thoughtfully articulated and highly beneficial when casting crankbaits in snaggy, tree-filled Devils Lake, N.D. Bentz says Fairbairn told him to retrieve the crankbait slowly until he felt the bill of the lure hit a tree and then pause and flip it over the limb without snagging. Such was a valuable lesson, indeed, when time is precious in competition.

Even Ranger pro Jason Przekurat, last year’s Angler of the Year on the pro side, came up through the ranks by fishing with the pros for a spell in his formative years.

“I looked at it this way: Where can I go for three days and pay this little amount?” Przekurat said. “It’s a lot cheaper than paying a different guide every day. I learned more in three days than I had in the last 10 years of walleye fishing. If a co-angler wants to hone and advance their walleye fishing to the next level, there’s no better way.”

Nowadays, on the pro side, Przekurat passes down his hard-won wisdom to an up-and-coming crew of walleye anglers using a mix of patience and thoughtful explanation. Przekurat says he takes the first 20 minutes of the day – the most important 20 minutes, he says – to explain a technique and tell his partner what to expect. If necessary, Przekurat will have his co-angler pay particular attention to how he is working a jig, for instance, to get a better idea of the technique.

“If you teach them right the first time, you don’t have to worry about it the rest of the day,” Przekurat said.

Teaching co-anglers could involve explaining any number of walleye techniques. Could be jigging. Could be handlining in current (a trolling method without rods but with hand-held wire line and heavy weights trailing minnow-tipped baits on monofilament leaders). Could be trolling lead-core line with crankbaits in rivers or in open water. Could be trolling the Great Lakes for monster walleyes that often surpass 10 pounds.

In a way, a co-angler will be on the receiving end of a private lesson that might help hone skills for fun fishing or for making the jump to the pro side.

“I think the best reason to get into a tournament for co-anglers is to learn new techniques or to learn their home waters better because we apply so many more methods than the average angler,” said Lund pro Mark Courts of Harris, Minn. “My biggest thing in fishing with co-anglers is to go out and have fun and take all the pressure off. Then I try to teach my partner what we’re going to be doing and how we’re going to be doing it.”

Priceless

For a co who successfully soaked up the instruction in 2003, look no further than Dan Miller of Poynette, Wis., who won more than a little wisdom when paired with pro John Kolinski of Menasha, Wis., on the Illinois River, where Miller took the co-angler title. Miller also won a windfall of $15,000, financial wherewithal that he says helped him buy a truck and a boat to help him compete as a pro in the RCL Tour in 2004.

“Yeah, the money is great,” Miller said. “But the people you get to meet and the learning process are even better. The biggest thing I learned (from Kolinski) is that when you get on a river, you’ve got to get the bites while you can. A barge went through on the final day, and our fish were done.”

Indeed, pros like Kolinksi are tutors of technique and communicators of the hard-won wisdom from decades on the water – how to jig, when to change spots, what to watch with changing conditions. Co-anglers like Miller pay attention and reap the rewards in the form of cash and the valuable walleye knowledge that comes from teaming up with a master. All of which, in a word, is priceless.