First Walleye Tournament of the year on Erie

[jamesbalog]

First tournament of the year is in the books. We didn’t have the results we were hoping for but I don’t think anyone did. It was a tough day on the water to say the least.

We were kicking around the idea of jigging all day but decided against it and made the 17ish mile run to the area between Rattlesnake and North Bass islands. It took us a little more than 45 minutes to get there in solid 2-4 footers out of the NW.

Once we got there we found 3 pockets of different colored water. One set was too dirty, one set was too clean and one set was about as good as it could get for the conditions. The marks in the area were spotty but we had more than enough suspended fish to make us feel like we would be able to put a few in the box. Long story short it never happened, we threw everything we had at them until a little after noon and never got a bite.

We then ran around looking for a while and settled on trying to fish the mud from Niagara towards D can. After about an hour of nothing there we headed back to locust for the last hour or so and tried to get the skunk off the boat jigging. We ended up catching one fish with about 10 minutes left to go.

It was a rough day; 18 pounds won the tournament with 9 pounds of fish placing. In good conditions it would take around 50 pounds to win this tournament. We still had fun though, hopefully the next tournamnet brings a little bit better conditions