Go West young man…that’s where the walleyes are! How true for our practice before and during the first NWT event of the 2021 season at Chamberlain,Oacoma, S.D. I pulled Ranger Pro Steve Miller’s Ranger 620 boat over to Kimball, S.D. where we met good friend and fellow angler, Steve Schaefer. Steve live in Sioux Falls and has fished Lake Francis Case for over 40 years. We stayed with Steve in his “man cave” home he helps maintain for the owners. We started our practice on Saturday, April 24th. Many other pros were already on the water earlier. We ran live bait rigs our first day but quickly switched to pulling cranks which seemed more productive for Steve Miller’s pro team which includes Victor Wood and Tyler Keyser. We were on the water every day, including Wednesday morning, searching spots and fine tuning the crankbait bite. We found a variety of baits all caught fish: Rapala #5 Shad Raps, Berkley #7 Flicker Shads (both standard and jointed) in a variety of colors depending on the day’s light conditions. Our registration, rules meeting, and complimentary dinner were all held Wednesday afternoon at the Arrowhead Convention and Resort center. There were a total of 113 Pro boats signed up with 113 willing co-anglers. My first day Pro was Curt Reeff from North Dakota. Curt owns PK lures located in Bismark, N.D. area. We fished south from the launch and pulled three of his open water baits along with a Flicker Shad. We did catch our limit but no fish over 20 inches. The rule for the event was you could have eight fish total, no culling, in your boat and weigh your best five with a total of two over the 20 inch minimum. Catching those overs was key to winning this event! Our day one weight was 10.42lbs. My day two parter was Pro Wayne Wilcox from Montana. His approach was something entirely different than what I had done all week: we cast jigs north of the launch on a community hole! I caught the first three keepers then we headed south to an area across from the White River. We “slipped” down the river with Wayne jigging two rods up front while I jigged two rods off the back of his Ranger 620. Fortunately, Wayne got our next two keepers, including one over 20inches. All I caught was a big catfish and some junk fish. Our weight for our five fish was 11.58lbs so I ended with 22lbs total and finished in 71st place. Please go to the National Walleye Tour website for the full results and Brett Carlson’s excellent stories from both tournament days and pictures from Robert Cardenas’s crew. Just know Chase Parson’s won the event with a total of 31.70lbs with Tommy Kemos in second place with 30.2lbs–their story is a good one to read. Thank you, again, to Steve Miller and Steve Schaefer for our time in the boat together along with my pro partners for the event. We are off to the second event May 27-28 at Sturgeon Bay in just a few weeks! Hope you enjoy the pictures and videos I put on my Facebook site last week and what Mike G. is able to post with this story. Tight lines! Spike

National Walleye Tour Report, Chamberlain, SD, April 29 and 30, 2021 by Gary Speicher, NPAA #128