City Auto Glass Walleye Classic

Wednesday after Zach and I traveled to Lake Vermillion to prefish for the City Auto Glass walleye tournament. We fished many parts of the lake for 3 days and found only one spot that produced aggressive fish. Zach found a scattered rock field in Pike Bay with his Humminbird graph's sidefinder display. Along with being able to see the rocks on several passes we saw fish on or around the rocks. Over the three days of prefishing we took 30-40 fish off this one spot. Friday afternoon we thought there would not be enough fish left there to enter to tournament, but when we went to the sign-up and heard all the horror stories of teams really not finding active fish we decided to enter. GREAT CHOICE because we caught a total of 38 fish on that spot for the tournament on Saturday. We actually left to return to the weigh-in an hour early because we ran out of bait. On the way in we were confident that we had enough fish to get into the money. When we weighed in there were only 3 other teams that had a bag of 6 fish and we had a pound on those teams. With a dozen boats left to come in we decided to take a walk we were too nervous to watch. Returning we were still in first place with the second place team only .03 pound behind us and 4 boats to still weigh. To make this long story shorter ....WE won and made a check of $10,500 and an invite to AIM year end championship on Big Winnie.

Thanks to Zach and his Humminbird Graph for giving us a chance to find the fish needed to win the tournament!!

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Zach and me were presented with our first place plaques and of course a check for $10,000 from the City Auto Glass walleye Classic.

Zach and myself posing after winning the City Auto Glass Walleye Classic on Lake Vermillion.

OPENER 2010

Sorry for the late posting of the opener pictures but its been a busy 2 weeks. The fishing this year was slow and spotty but when we talked to other groups we did alright. With groups fishing in waders and and 3 boats fishing Little and Big Winnie we probably caught 50+ walleyes in 2 days. Bill and Bruce caught 3 of the most impressive fish wader fishing in Little Winnie catching three 26"+ walleyes Sunday afternoon. That evening David and his boat caught 18 walleyes on little Winnie. After celebrating the catch Wheeta (I still really don't know how to spell your last name) treated the campfire group to a late night laugh fest!! He had all of us laughing for 2 hours straight and and we went to bed with sore bellies from laughing too much. WTG Frankie you are a true comedian of the camp fire crew. On asking if all 12 will return next year all will return and we may grow to use the resorts last available cabin. Soon the resort will be all ours for the opener...OMG watch out Little Winnie Resort!!

What will 2011 bring?

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Bruce and Bill are holding 3 very nice walleyes caught on Sunday...WTG Bill!!

Bruce and Bill decided to use their superior intellect and bring chairs into the lake to fish the very low waters of Little Winnie. Also Bill was recovering from an extended stay in the hospital and his stamina for standing was not there.

I guess this is fishing opener 2010 version of "Grumpy Old Men".

Bill is fishing hard and enjoying it. Bruce on the other hand decided to test to water temperature the hard way. It only took 20 minutes for his feet to go numb!!

The youngsters fishing next to us took the lead of Bill and Bruce and decided to relax to fish and hold their spots in the water.

On Sunday Bill caught these 26"+ walleye on consecutive casts on Little Winnie.

Sunset at the Birches landing after a successful evening of fishing on Big Winnie.

You can see where many fish on the river. Most of the current moves along the impoundment wall, the water is only 3-4 feet deep but the fish are well camoflaged. Lucky fishermen will see spawning fish as they flash on their sides laying their eggs in the rocks. When you see the females do this and if you look closely there are usually a male fish or two behind the female fertilizing her eggs. With the water so low in all the rivers if you saw fish they were very spooky and you were lucky to get a cast or 2 at any fish.

The first fish I landed was a bright female steelhead. This fish was a fresh fish because of the silver color. The longer the fish stay in the river the darker the sides get. This steelie probably came out of the lake within the last day or two.

Our second day on the Manistique I hooked into 5 steelies and caught these 2. The left fish is a nice male and the right is a large female.

The Manistique River is a place to fish steelhead, but the scenery is not very picturesque. You park in an old coal yard in town and you fish along a papermill impoundment. The crumbling walls have been cut down to reduce the stress but word has it the walls will be torn down completely.