Cold Front Walleye

It wasn't the most pleasant of days to be on the water! The wind was from the east, gusting to sixty kilometres an hour, whipping up the waves on Last Mountain Lake into small mountains. Since it was a tournament day, one had no option but to throw on the Nautilaus survival suit and head out the door, praying for a safe return. As my partner and I boated down the lake, wisps of mist off the warmer surface water were quickly whisked away by the stiff winds. To add insult to injury the air temperature had also dropped dramatically overnight, down to about six celsius and it wasn't warming up anytime soon.

Tough conditions to fish in? You bet, but as always there are lessons to be learned about days like this and how fish react to changes in weather. The previous day we had fished a shoreline point that had some rock and sand in about 8 metres of water. With the nice day and stable weather catching fish had not been a problem. In fact it had been downright spectacular with big walleye smacking pretty much anything you put down there. We started out the previous day with bottom bouncers and spinners which had worked just fine. Switching over to walking sinker, snell and straight hook had produced some nice fish as well. Backtrolling with a jig was working to!

Then that situation that every fisherman dreads, the dramatic change in the weather that results in the old expression "you should have been there yesterday."

So as we headed back to our spot were we had the success in the good weather, we knew things would probably change. Sure enough, while we were marking fish after we arrived, we couldn't seem to solicit a fish to grab on to what had worked yesterday. As the day wore on we changed locations a number of times and by the end of the day we managed to catch more than a dozen walleye, all-smaller fish that were not going to help us win any money in this particular tournament. It did, though, once again demonstrate what we needed to do to catch more fish during and after a cold front.

This was highlighted dramatically the second day while fishing a sand beach on the west shore of this productive walleye lake. We had been catching decent fish earlier in the day drifting with the wind with live bait rigs tipped with leeches and crawlers. At the end of the drift we would backtroll against the moderate north wind with the big motor, using bottom bouncers and spinner rigs. Both seemed to be working equally well, but once again, no larger walleye had been caught. At the end of one of the drifts with the wind, I went to start the big outboard. There was ominous silence as I turned the key. Not panicking but concerned, we tried a couple of different things to get it started. No luck. As we had drifted a good portion already I grabbed the anchor from its storage area below deck and dropped it over the side. It took a little time but finely the anchor set in about 8 metres of water, down a kilometre from the area we had been fishing.

While I took the cowl off the motor, Jim dropped a jig over the side then came back to give me a hand with the motor. In a short time we figured out the problem, it was a contact plate with the neutral safety switch. As I put the cowl back on the motor, my partner Jim moved back to the front of the boat to check on his jig. I was startled when I heard Jim tell me that a net was required to land a fish that had just slammed his jig. Surprised but elated I slipped the net under a nice chunky walleye. As I took the fish and gently placed in the back livewell, Jim was a little more vociferous this time in letting me know he had another fish on the jig and this one was much large than the last. After a tug of war, the biggest walleye of the day came up from the depths, a solid three kilogram specimen that was quickly added to our total for the day. All had been caught on jig and leech using a totally in your face vertical presentation. Realizing this is what we should have been doing all along given the cold front conditions, we proceeded to smack another dozen walleye using the same kind of presentation to end the day and the tournament on an extremely positive note.

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