September Walleyes

We were still deciding at the bait store if we were perch or walleye fishing. The reports were excellent for both. I found that surprising for this the first day of autumn. The perch fishing can be good, but walleye in late September? So we stood at the bait store realizing that we forgot a minnow bucket! Among the four of us, Matt, Jerry, Derek and myself, nobody brought a bucket. Matt volunteered his cooler, problem solved.

The bait store smelled like a mixture of night crawlers and minnows, as one would expect. The humming sounds of the refrigerators and aerators created a perfect background noise for all the fish stories being shared by various customers. I was paying careful attention to two men talking quietly about perch fishing.

“You need to have your perch by 1:00. They seem to shut off about then.” I heard the elder fisherman explain.

This information seemed to make fishing for both a poor option today. Meanwhile, my partners had procured their minnows and were deciding on how many worms to purchase.

“The reports are that they are hitting on spoons and cranks. We don’t need any worms!” Matt advised.

Not having fished for walleye without worms, they purchased two dozen.

The group loaded the poles and plethora of assorted coolers and gear. We were on the water by 9:00 AM. The collective decision was to troll for walleyes. Matt suggested that we head for Huron. I grabbed the steering wheel as the group readied the poles, dipsy divers, jet divers, planer boards, and lures. I set a course for a position north of “The Dumping Grounds”.

We fished the area earlier this year. Walleye were caught, but as most people reported this summer, there were many two-year-old fish. The problem is that two-year-old fish are fourteen to fourteen and a half inches long. The ODNR appropriately set the walleye length limit at fifteen inches. As a result, fishermen were throwing back three walleyes to every one they could keep. The smaller fish are more active. That means the fish you cannot keep are more likely to bite your hook. Our boat did a little better than most this summer. We kept nine and threw back eight.

As we approached our marks on the GPS unit, I could see a pack of boats.

“This is it!” I slowed the boat down short of the pack.

We immediately began seeing good marks on the fish finder at twenty-four feet in forty feet of water. I adjusted out speed to 2.3 miles per hour. This speed is fast for worm harnesses but just right for plugs and spoons.

We only had two lines out when someone yelled, “Fish On!”

One of the dipsy divers was tripped open. Matt reeled in a nice nineteen inch walleye. Derek netted it, and in the live well it went. It was only five minutes later when one of the planer boards pulled back.

Jerry grabbed the rod, “This is a nice one!”

The nice one Jerry described managed to escape the cooler as it approached the boat.

“Way to knock it off Jerry!” We each took turns ribbing Jerry. It was all in fun.

Jerry tried his hand at the next fish that pulled a planer board. It trolled a realistic minnow looking jerk bait as did the first one. A walleye it was.

“This one might be close. I am not sure. It is plump though!” Matt described the fish in his hand.

I turn around to see Matt measuring a sixteen-inch walleye.

“Good enough!” Matt threw it in the live well.

Eventually, the walleyes made it into the cooler. Someone shared with us several years ago that the fish are better eating if allowed to bleed out before putting them on ice. A carefully made incision through both gill regions then ventrally gets the job done.

The dipsy tripped again. Matt grabbed the pole. This tooth-clad Pisces was putting up quite a tussle. Jerry grabbed the net. I watched as he attempted to scoop the walleye. Somehow Jerry managed to miss the fish but get two treble hooks in the outside of the net. He lifted the net and fish out of the water.

“Get it in the boat! Get it in the boat!” Matt repeated excitedly.

Jerry swung the net back into the boat with the fish still attached.

“Well first you knocked a fish off with your pole, now you try to knock Matt’s fish off!” I teased.

“Hey, did I get it in the boat?” Was all Jerry could muster for his defense!

We laughed. The fish measured twenty-four inches. A very respectable fish.

We trolled for ten more minutes without a bite. Matt suggested that we make a wide swing and go back through that area. A wide swing is imperative as we had seven lines in the water. Trying to turn too sharply would result in tangled lines.

I began my turn and realized that we were less than one mile north of where we fished on our last trip together. The “Dumping Grounds” were less than five miles to our south. The stretch of water that we trolled was approximately a mile and a half long. We caught fish slightly less than one mile of our traverse.

Upon return to our “hot spot”, I began marking fish at twenty-four feet.

“Here they are twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-four…” My markings report was cut short by the attack of two fish on our lures.

Fish at twenty-four feet was our target. It proved to be consistent throughout the day. Matt reeled in a fish on a dipsy pole on the starboard side while Derek hauled one in from a planer board in the port side. Jerry stood ready with the landing net. As Matt’s fish reached the surface, Jerry scooped in for the fish. Like before, the treble hooks buried themselves into the outside of the net and Jerry swung the fish into the boat. A plump fifteen and three-quarter inch walleye was added to the box. Laughter ensued!

“You are supposed to put the fish IN the net, Jerry!” I chuckled.

“Anybody can do that!” I heard Jerry say.

Matt was laughing but worked quickly to open the snap swivel on his jerk bait. With the plug still embedded in the outside of the net, Matt landed Derek’s eighteen-inch walleye. In Jerry’s defense, he had very little experience with a landing net. He did get the hang of it.

By the time the lines were back out, we had another one on. It too turned out to be sixteen inches. At this point, we surmised that the fourteen and one-half inch two-year-olds that we caught earlier are now older fifteen plus inch fish. We did not keep all of our fish that qualified in length. We kept twenty-four walleyes. We threw back six that were thirteen inches and four that were legal length.

I never thought that September was a walleye month, but we had a blast. Do not put your walleye gear away too soon. The first day of autumn can be hot!

Planar boards in line

Middle planer board back equals fish on!

Matt with big fish

Group photo