GIANT catfish! What do they have to do with a walleye fishing tournament? That’s the question my fishing friend and MWC partner, Tom Harrison, kept asking ourselves during practice for the MWC event out of Oconto, WI. It seemed we caught five cats for every walleye put in the boat during practice and the actual tournament days. Just part of the deal when you pull spinners to catch fish on Green Bay, I guess. Tom and I were able to have a good three days of practice moving around from the west to the east side of the Bay. We caught at least two big fish each day but not on crawlers–on Bandit deep diving crankbaits. The bigger fish seemed to come in deeper water, 34 feet plus, running the 2 ounce snap weight fifty feet behind the bait then more line out using the Precision Trolling App on our phone. If you don’t have this app, you are missing some of the best information on how to get your baits to the desired depth to catch walleye! I purchased the “lifetime” service a couple years ago which includes free updates as new lures or modifications are added. When we ran spinners, Tom and I varied the depths trying to keep the baits just above the heads of biting fish. We decided to skip fishing Thursday because of strong north winds–we went out but chose to turn around and come back in. “It’s not worth it, Spike, breaking stuff just before the tournament starts!” Tom exclaimed. Our rules meeting was held at the Bond Community Center in Oconto. We learned there would be 84 teams competing. Day 1 found us heading south to Penasaukee Shoal area where trolling was easy because of little wind from the south. We moved from 26 feet to 38 feet alternating between spinners and cranks. This event was “no cull” which means you could not trade out fish to upgrade. You could bring five fish to the scale. We caught our limit but there were some big weights including a 37 pound bag! On Day 2, we returned to the Shoal but the winds had picked up and we could only run the Ranger 620 from 12-14 mph to get to our spot safely. There were fewer local boats out. We ran our program from the previous day. “We may regret this later,” Tom said as we kept a couple smaller fish to get our limit. He was right. Our sixth fish, our biggest came on a Bandit in the deeper water less than five minutes after we put the bait out! We tossed the smallest fish back and came in early with our five for just over 20 pounds with a two day total of 41-03 pounds placing us in 35th place. We give credit to the “locals” who had the bigger fish bite dialed in, particularly with Shiver Minnows further up the Bay on select spots. Tom and I want to thank Grace and Gary Mongelli for allowing us to stay in their home for the week while they competed in the A.I.M. Championship on Lake Winnebago–what gracious hosts!! Thanks, also, to Tom for sharing a week on the water with me. Green Bay should be on your list of places to go fish for walleye–or, GIANT catfish! Spike (PS-full tournament results at www.masterswalleyecircuit.com)

WalleyeWisdom.com – Cabela's MWC Report, Green Bay, WI, August 3-4, 2018