An Outdoorsman’s Journal:
Hello friends, This week I spent a day, a night and part of a day in my 18.6 War Eagle with my golden retrievers Ruby and Red fishing for walleye. Though I was very into this adventure, I cannot get the next one off my mind, which is living in the mountains of Montana and hunting mule deer and elk.
Wednesday, Oct.11 – High 55, low 42 My goal for this trip was at least a limit of walleye and to have a genuine go-for-it experience with Ruby and Red while we fished, cooked and slept in the War Eagle while exploring many miles of the incredible fishery called Green Bay. I might add that I knew difficult weather conditions were approaching, but they were not supposed to hit until my drive home on Thursday night.
One of my first decisions was where to launch: Suamico, Geano Beach or Peshtigo. That decision was made simply because Suamico was first on my drive. I know how to fish in all of these areas and so it did not really matter. Some bad news came repeatedly when I was preparing my rig at the landing and every fishermen that I spoke with talked about fish that simply were not feeding.
Nothing was going to kill my excellent mood, and I motored out to big water and started setting out three lines, all with crankbaits, and began to troll towards Green Bay which was maybe 5 miles away. At first, I was not very smooth as running planer boards alone, it takes focus, but I got good at it and was very happy and knew that soon big walleye would come in large numbers.
In reality, I am on crunch time for my elk/mule deer hunt. Gear and the weather forecast are constantly on my mind. A spike camp up high, a base camp down low. I did my first elk hunt 20 years ago and have done four in total. Every single hunt, I have been hit with a major blizzard either the day before or on the opening day of the season. That is why so much planning is required. Last year, a blizzard hit on opening morning. I shot my 6x6 an hour after daylight, it snowed for two days and I did not see another hunter until day four of the season.
So today I am trolling while catching nothing and not seeing any other fishermen put their net down either. Here is what I thought about with almost zero wind as I headed towards Green Bay: the Packers and how huge they are for the NFL, how they kind of suck this year and how fortunate we are to have such reliable professional sports teams in Wisconsin. Just before dark I had my first hit, and it was the largest striped bass that I have ever caught or seen. At dark I idled to shore, but it was too shallow to make it to shore. I had the dogs swim/wade to shore to do their business and I anchored the boat and set up a very comfortable bed.
Over the course of the night I had several setbacks. One, the Green Bay tide went out and my boat became very stuck. I noticed this late in the evening and had to put on my hip boots and bulldog my rig to deeper water. Two, my sleeping bag was becoming soaked through due to a heavy dew; I covered up with a tarp and that took care of that. Three, both pups want to sleep with their heads literally on my neck/chin and Red dreams a lot, which means she groans, purrs and yelps while squirming around.
Before first light the wind picked up and this was the real story. I was 3 miles from the landing and had planned on fishing all day. I set out three lines, began trolling and at times I had 4-footers and sometimes they were less than 2. I took in a lot of water, but I had a bilge pump and that is critical. Eventually I got used to the high seas. I could only work my lines on my knees to avoid falling overboard.
I put in five hours hunting walleye and never had a strike before the waves told me I had pushed my luck long enough.
One of the premier hunts that is left maybe in my lifetime is next. I really do not care about antler size, but I would love to whack a muley, an elk, or both. Time will tell.
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Mark Walters
