Friday, April 9th 2010

Hi, WW readers! It’s 5am in Detroit and it’s over for the Chris Burns’ fishing team! None of the three pros nor any of our co-anglers made the top ten cut to fish today for the top prize money. We leave Detroit both sad and glad. Sad we aren’t fishing today but glad for the fish we caught during pre-fishing and the tournament–this body of water is an awesome fishery for anglers skilled in both big Lake and River fishing. The weather conditions yesterday were down right nasty–there was snow on the bottom of my pro boat when we hooked up to drive to the launch site and the temps never got above the upper 30’s on the water all day. Most anglers would call it “brutal”….I called it “open water ice fishing”! My pro, Scott Steil, and I headed to the Lake and spent the entire fishing day trying to find water just the “right” color to hold the big female walleyes cruisin’ after spawning in the Maumee River just west of where we were fishing. There were 16 pro boats working the same area trying to follow the moving fish. We had our limit by 11am and then worked to upgrade. All our fish were caught using the same lure, a diving Rapala Husky Jerk, in the firetiger pattern. We kept moving and went back to some dirtier water where we bagged an almost 11 pounder!! We were excited with the nice upgrade catch and worked hard to catch another just like it but no success. We caught another fish but not an upgrade. We left to give us an hour boat ride back for the weigh-in at 3pm. At the mouth of the Detroit, we were flagged down by pro, Dan Stier,whose boat had broken down. We put his catch in a net in our live well, got his co-angler partner, and headed in a hurry to the check-in boat. The Stier co-angler got permission to take Dan’s fish up to the bump tank so we could keep both his and our fish alive. If you go to the FLW website, you’ll see that our efforts helped Dan make the top ten cut at number 8! Scott and my weight put us at 29-11. Be sure to check out Scott’s interviews on the WW video section to hear his take on the tournament day plus a bonus video on the new AIM catch, record, and release tournament series. For our wrapup, Chris Burns finished in 35th place with 45-3, Jim Hughes was in 46th at 37-7, and Kevin O’Malley was in 49th and 29-13. Our co-angler pals, Marty Barty and Jesse Proffitt, finished at 20th and 43rd respectively. I finished at 27th place with 50-2. As usual, only 7 pounds kept me from making the top ten! Oh, well…that’s fishing. Our next event is in just two weeks at Spring Valley, IL, on the Illinois River. Our reports will continue from the second event of the FLW Walleye Tour Eastern Division. Thanks, everyone, for reading and becoming Walleye Wisdom watchers! Spike

Thursday, April 8th 2010

Hi, Mike! When we left the hotel this morning at 5:30am the temp was 56 degrees. When we came in off the water this afternoon a little after 3pm, it was 43 degrees with almost 40mph winds! My pro partner, Rick Zachowski, and I headed for the main lake. We made a couple passes with cranks and spinners. No bites. So we headed back to the River and went to a spot where Rick caught them pre-fishing. From 10:30am to 11:30am we caught our limit of five walleyes and continued to fish catching another eight fish. We were able to upgrade a couple of the fish. I was able to contribute to the team by catching three of the fish including the largest, a 25 incher. We weighed just over 20 pounds and I’m in 44th place out of 55. There were some really good weights taken today, in spite of the weather! Please check out the standings by going to the FLW Website linkend to Walleye Wisdom. Chris went to the main lake spot we pre-fished and caught his limit early then left because the weather was turning nasty. His young co-angler pleaded with him to make a few more passes in hopes of catching a bigger fish but Chris made the right call for safety and headed back. Both Jim and Kevin were unhappy with their catches. Marty did well and Jesse is two spots ahead of me. We’ll have a day 2 report for you tomorrow at the end of the day. My partner is Scott Steil from Richmond, MN. By the way, the temps tonight are to be in the low 30’s with snow flurries and the possibilty of snow flurries in the morning! I hope all our WW watchers will take a good look at the videos to get the reports from today’s activity. So long to all our friends at Walleye Wisdom! Spike