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Member
Posts: 2567
Location: Manitowoc, WI | Well, it was quite an experience to be a part of a fishing tournament like the Winneconne PWT. Taking 65th place wasn't quite where I had hoped to finish, but it could be alot worse. My short-term goal was to cash a check and the long term was to get in a good position for a shot at the championship. Unfortunately, I couldn't talk Jim Kalkofen into extending the payout back 65 places, so I have to settle with being only 17 points out of the final qualifying spot for the championship. Enough of the idle chatter about where I placed. Let's get to the fishing end of it.
On Saturday and Sunday, if you were to ask my partner's, they would have told you that I was in line to finish high in this event. Saturday afternoon my son and I made two passes in one of my favorite trolling spots on Butte des Mortes and had 4 fish over 17", with two being 5 1/2 and 4 lbs. We next hit another spot on Winneconne and got three more fish over 18" in one pass. I can recall talking to other fisherman who were practicing for this event who had given up on the trolling bite in favor of jigging the Upper Wolf for smaller fish. With this hot trolling bite, I thought I could possibly win this thing!! Sunday morning was a repeat of Saturday, with even bigger fish. I was sure I was going to cash in big time!!!
Then Sunday afternoon's big winds along with Monday's winds blew my plans away. The areas I was fishing turned to mud, with visibility being less than 2". In fact, I never caught a walleye Monday or Tuesday. Talk about deflating!!!! Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Wednesday found me paired with Chase Parsons. Chase is going to be a world class walleye fisherman, just like his dad Gary. Having Chase in the boat was like having another pro in the boat. I let him run the rods while I handled the boat. We managed to land four fish for 5.02 lbs. Surprisingly, we were in 44th place. Meanwhile, my partners went upriver and struck gold with the smaller 14-15" fish. Based on Thursday's weather forecast, I abandoned my trolling bite for the "sure thing" of smaller fish in the Upper Wolf. Too bad the fish had other ideas. A killer of a day with one 17" fish for 1.7 lbs. Mired in 72nd place, I had to decide to either go for the gold or play it safe and try to get small fish and keep or slightly improve my position. Feeling it would take 16-17 lbs to cash a check, I decided to focus again on the Wolf. My partner and I managed 4 fish in the river and made a late decision to try and troll up some bigger ones. We were blessed with one 19" fish on Winnconne just before we were to come in, giving us a total of 5 fish for 6.68 lbs. My total for the three day event was 13.4 lbs.
Observations: for trolling, I am thoroughly impressed with Rapala's new Glasseye Shad Rap series. In practice and during the tourney, many nice fish were caught on this crankbait. For jigging, Hutch Tackle's 1/8 and 1/16 oz. jigs in orange and green were a hot ticket for our group. The fish were on a crawler bite, but it seemed as though the bigger fish were being taken on leeches.
Other items: do you ever get the feeling that some guys have a horseshoe deposited in them when it comes to these events? Take my partner Dan Plautz, for example. He pulls in with about 10 minutes of fishing time left, sees me trolling an area, asks me what's up, I give him the thumbs down sign and he considers leaving but decides, at the last minute, to give it one quick pass. Five minutes later, he's netting a 6 1/2 lber....unbelieveable. Using the same lures, the same distance back, trolling th same speed. I guess that's why he's the PWT champion and I continue to be a "wanna-be"......;) |
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| Jerry Keep your head up! It was tough for many and all you can do is chalk it up to another learning experience! Your in great company and the envy of many. Good Luck on your next trip and keep plowin forward! Thanks for the story it's great.
Good Luck
Tyee |
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Member
Posts: 183
Location: Menasha, Wis. | Thanks for the recap as a participant. Helps us spectators get a feel for the competition each day.
Good luck on the rest of the schedule.
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A well written interesting story. Keep on telling them! |
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Member
Posts: 526
Location: blue mounds,wisc | jerry, your a great fisherman and the guy that gets better as the season goes is the one that does the best . you have all the skills that many fishermen never learn. so now you have to fish harder and stick to what you think you can win with. glad you went back to trolling it tells me alot about the way you fish. you will make the championship i know you want it bad enough!!! |
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Member
Posts: 163
Location: Oshkosh | It isn't common to get such a thorough breakdown from a pro contestant afte a tournament. Thanks for the recap, and hopefully this will encourage other guys on this board (like Dale Kuklinski & Larry Smith, to name a couple) to chime in as well. Not so much interested in the "wheres," but more the reasoning behind their strategies.
Mark |
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Member
Posts: 124
Location: FREMONT WISCONSIN | i fished the river on thur and fri i was fishing out of a white warrior i tryed to give you all room to fish and watched to see if i could learn anything. well i fished the fort fremont toury and ran up where jerry and all the other pros were fishing and we got 5.28 lbs caught a lot of fish there |
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Member
Posts: 2567
Location: Manitowoc, WI | Thanks for the positive reinforcement and comments folks. I thought it would give other's a different perspective when viewed by a tournament contestant. I'll continue to do this throughout the year, as I have many events left to chronicle and fish. If anyone has any questions regarding this event, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll try to answer them. |
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| Hey Jerry,
Good Job on the fishing and re-cap. Just wanted to mention that I agree on the glass shad rap comment. I caught my only two real counters on the #4 Pearl colored one. It seems that every fish in the system loves it. Caught Channel Cats, Flat-heads, white bass, Northerns and walleye on it during practice. I think it resembles a young white bass. Hot, Hot bait when the fish are cooperating. (Also snagged a 4 ft. sturgeon with it but that doesn't count, fun though!)
Other presentations during the tourny was jigging below Fremont and 3-ways around Winneconne. Minimal success.
Should have trolled more, And should have went further north on the wolf.
Ron
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