Go West they say to catch walleye on the Missouri River! Tracy Hayward, Mike Woods and I left with Tracy’s Lund boat and arrived in Kimball, SD late Sunday afternoon. We joined our host, Steve Schaefer, and his son, Chris, at their shared “man cave” house and big garage in the small rural community just east of Chamberlain. Day 1 found Steve and Chris fishing together from Steve’s Lund tiller while I joined Tracy and Mike. Each boat caught over 50 total walleyes with limits of four each easy to count! Day 2 was a blow day so Chris headed home to Sioux Falls while we did a drive to Pierre, SD, to “shop” and pass the time telling fish stories. Day 3 I fished with Steve while Tracy and Mike banged on the SD walleyes! Again, many fish caught using bottom bouncers with minnows, leeches, or crawlers on a slow death hook. Boat traffic on our spot Day 3 was down because of the wind but everyone came out Day 4 because of the nice weather conditions. Mike and Steve were done by 1pm while Tracy and I fished until 3pm and came in one short our limit. Again, we caught lots of 14 1/2 inch fish, too short to keep. We’d like to thank Russ and the crew at Club Vega for nice evening meals plus cooking our catch one night. Hard to beat walking two blocks to have dinner with the cowgirls and cowboys out West! We were early to bed each night and up early for our walleye fishing commute to Chamberlain. We returned home on Friday to find grass to mow and other spousal chores. Thank you’s to the wives who let us go, Steve for hosting, and the South Dakota walleyes who came back to Iowa for a future meal! Spike
