“Better late than never,” is what I would say to my Dad who had a habit of waiting up for me following a date with Susan! Same goes for this report from the October 18, 2015 W.A.T. Catch, Photo, and Release event out of Bellevue, IA a couple weeks ago. Tracy Hayward and I practice fished in the wind both Friday and Saturday on the Mississippi River for the last W.A.T. event of the tournament year. We shared information with Chris Burns and his partner, bass fisherman Bob Hutchcroft, who is also our Ranger Dealer at Bob’s Marine in Bellevue. Chris caught most of his fish jigging while we caught most of ours pulling double Raps during practice and on tournament day. Sunday arrived with layers of fog up and down Pool 13–which meant for some slow going to get to our spots. If you are a wing dam fisherman, getting to your spot first is a BIG deal. Tracy and I caught four fish for a total recorded weight of 10.08 pounds while Burns/Hutchcroft caught four for 9.34 pounds putting us at 18th and 19th place respectively out of the 26 teams entered in the event. The first place team had five for 38.76 pounds with a big fish weighing 9.09 pounds! Please check out all the results at the W.A.T. website linked to walleyewisdom.com. What I learned was there’s a lot more to fishing the River and the seasoned competitors who know the wing dams and “secret spots” have a real advantage! Congratulations to all the competitors for their season and we’ll see what the schedule looks like for 2016! By the way, one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to learn how to fish wing dams effectively! Hope you enjoyed reading this report and the pictures of some of the nice fish caught in practice! Spike