CG Auto Glass Walleye Tournament On Lake Vermillion

Zach and I went up to Lake Vermillion on Wednesday to prefish for Saturdays tournament. OnWednesday we saw sun and 60 degree temps, on Thursday it snowed with morning temps of 25, on Friday it was nice with near 60 degree temperatures, and on Saturday for the tourney we had 20-30 MPH winds with snow and ice pellets all morning. Needless to say it was the longest day of fishing I've had in years and hope I don't see again soon. There were 61 crazy contestants that fished with some success. We boated 4 weigh fish and placed 11th, one spot out of the money......SH*T!!

As of right now that tournament has had a run of 3 years with bad weather for each event. I don't see us signing up for this again! The fishing on most lakes has been tough and I feel its mainly due to he changes in the weather daily. Hopefully it will stabilize for the holiday weekend fishermen. I may even wet a line on a warm day....PLEASE be warm just one day!!

Best of luck to all,

Steelheader

Thanks to Pat and Steve Rogers for show Zach and me a few good fishing spots on Vermillion. We caught fish from these spots in Saturdays walleye tourney.

An eater caught by Steve provided nice fillets for our evening fish fry.

Steve caught this 26" walleye on Wednesday as he and Pat showed us a few spots to fish in Saturdays tournament.

On Friday I caught this 19" eye on Hoodoo Point in Pike Bay.

On Friday the DNR was using planes to transport walleye fry that were loaded in tanks you see above the floats of the plane.

This is a site you don't see everywhere! Barges on Lake Vermillion powered by 3 outboards haul equipment to islands and shoreline that has no road access.

Opener 09 from Zach's Camera

Zach sent me the pictures from his camera and they follow. Thanks Z I never have all the shots in one camera, and you have goods for blogging.

Taking off Wednesday on a new adventure,

Steelhead

Zach's new boat, and it's a beauty. Although it didn't make Gillians 3 hour cruise, its still a keeper.

An evenings worth of fillets waiting to be cleaned.

A typical fishermens fridge; bait, brats, wine, beer and bags of fish fillets. Also on top was someones mystry meat in the big baggie, everybody cleaned out there freezers when bringing food for opener.

David (DJ) having a cocktail after a day of fishing.

Starting on the left we Jeff, Frankie the youngest newbie, Me, Merle, Larry the other newbie, and Mike.

Mike shows us that sometimes it actually hurts to get up!

Left to right Merle, Jeff, Bruce, Me, and Mike mugging for Zach after a BBQ supper.

Frankie(Buck Wheata)(I'll have to get the spelling of your name...SORRY!) taking a rest from his around the camp fire stand-up routine. Many of us were laughing so hard we were crying! Happy to say Frank said he's in on the opener next year. Looking forward to many more laughs.

Fishing opener "09"

Well the long awaited day arrive and passed with the fish finding our stringers. Lets just say we caught enough fish and then some. We had 2 newbies in Frank and larry and they were able to catch fish and have a blast doing it. Our opening weekend is always a hit. It was a mild weekend really and we didn't break anything at the resort. The Little Winnie resort appreciates that.

Sunday night we had a great fish fry that left everybodies bellies full. There will be more pictures coming off Zach's camera so look for them soon.

Get out and fish it's only going to get better,

Steelheader

This just a small pre-fishing warm-up, trust me it warms you up to brave the opener cold day.

Merle being his serious self.

Jeff looking his usual profesional self. He always has some new gadget to show off.

Larry enjoying a porkchop in a can, a man has to keep his strength up.

Looking good Frank, now catch a fish!

After a hard Saturday night there were bodies piled up in the fishhouse. Fortunately on Sunday afternoon they were up and moving. Paramedics were not needed as first thought.

Mike putting in his fishing time.

Larry and Merle posing for the camera. Larry was a new member of the group this year. He caught fish and had fun, can beat that for an opener trip.

Bill, Bruce, and Mike taking a well deserved rest from fishing.

One of our newbies was Frank Wheata.....sorry about the spelling but he was the comic relief. On Sunday night around the camp fire he had everyone laughing. Sorry most stories will not be repeated...definately X-RATED.

Z has the "watch out fish" look on.