Previous Next

Memorial Day Campout 2016 - A Fish Princess Adventure!

We arrived at our campsite at Sun Lakes State Park on Thursday evening just in time to join our posse for dinner. Following the fine meal we got the trailer set-up with hopes for an early start to our Friday fishing plans to head to Roosevelt for some MONSTA kokanee fishing. Mother nature, however, decided to down shift us to our back-up plan. As the evening wore on the winds grew to high teens sustained with gusts to almost 30 knots. They were so fierce that they shook the trailer several times during the night making for tough sleeping conditions. When the alarm went off at 0430 it was still howling outside to a degree that I felt it would be unsafe to take two young ladies out on our small craft on open water at Roosevelt. I summarily dispatched the alarm and rolled over to enjoy a few more hours of sleep.

The wind was still brisk when we woke up so we had a lazy breakfast and watched a movie then I got busy adjusting our gear to drop back to plan 'B' which was to target walleye on Moses Lake (HUGE shout out to Salmonbarry for the excellent intel that led to this game plan - we enjoyed our fishing day as a result of your kindness and willingness to share!). Unfortunately, I neglected to bring the box containing most of my walleye leaders. On the bright side, I did have four or five worm harnesses and a handful of bottom walkers stashed in one of my tackle bags so we had enough proven gear to at least get us started. By mid-day the wind was simmering down enough to where I considered it would be safe to get out on the boat so we packed up and made the run up to Moses to test our luck.

We launched at Connelly Park and followed Barry's guidance to head out from the launch turn right and start fishing. We fished all worm harnesses on bottom walkers right on the bottom in 10' - 15' of water. I had two different sizes of bottom walkers and we found that with the stiff breeze still blowing it was difficult to stay near bottom with the lighter bottom walkers. I switched out the bottom walkers so we were using all heavier ones and had just enough to run 5 rods.

At first we had a few nibbles and short biters but finally we got into a solid hook-up. Our guest Fish Princess, Tia, was equal to the task bringing a nice eater-size walleye to net and booting the skunk right over board! Before long we had another take down and the Fish Princess expertly angled our biggest fish of the day to net. We had our mojo going and I added a fish to the creel right on the heels of our last catch. Our most consistent rig was a white worm harness with Kelly green accents and we trolled at 1.0 mph to 1.5 mph depending on whether we were going with or against the wind. I had some success enticing bites by essentially motor mooching on the down wind troll. I could not leave the motor in gear and keep the speed I wanted so I would shift into neutral periodically to keep the speed down. This stop/start or fast/slow action on the gear seemed to encourage some bites.

At this point we reversed our course and headed back toward the launch and beyond it. We hooked and lost one or two along the way. Then calamity struck...we trolled almost all of our gear right into a sunken tree and lost 3 of our five heavy bottom walkers and the worm harnesses which were also in limited supply. Following this we were forced to reduce the number of fishing poles in service to two or three. I found a green wedding ring with double chartreuse hooks to replace one of the lost worm harnesses and this produced the last of our four fish for the day.

I was happy to get the girls into some fish and to have some tasty white meat fillets to snack on during the balance of our campout. The girls were happy to be out on the boat and we split the catching duty pretty well with Tia catching the first, the Fish Princess catching the biggest, and Fish Dawg landing the most.

A couple meals of pan sauteed walleye fillets were enough to convince me that I need to do more walleye fishing. What a treat!

salmonbarry

6/5/2016 2:59:00 PM

Glad I could assist the master in his quest!! Happy you guys got into some of those big eyes! I am anxious to get back and try for more!! Great job and love those smiling faces!

DavidA

6/6/2016 9:00:00 AM

Great report, Dawg! Good to know what you were doing, where and why. On my last trip there, late May, I covered that eastern shore, with surprisingly much less successful results, so I'm happy that area is back to how it 'should' be! It's really good that you could get the two girls out there with you. It can add so much an already great way to spend some time. Continued good luck!

afk

6/6/2016 10:03:00 AM

Glad you got into some. Sorry to hear of your losing so much gear all in one spot. But, all too often when walleye fishing, if you are not losing gear, you are not fishing. Thanks for the report. Andy

Fish Dawg

6/6/2016 12:31:00 PM

Thanks again, Barry, for the excellent recommendation and insight. Totally agree David, time spent fishing with my daughter is priceless and that much more enjoyable for both of us when she has one of her buddies along to keep her company (and this particular friend was a very gung-ho fisherwoman)! Good reminder, Andy, wouldn't have been a big deal if I had my usual arsenal of gear with me...just hurt having to cut down on the number of rods we were fishing due to lack of supplies in reserve. Just glad for the time spent fishing with the kiddos and that the fish chose to play along!

Leave a Comment:

Login

Flag

×

Why is this comment inappropriate?

Close Submit

Delete this comment? Provide reason.

No Yes

Edit

×

Cancel Save