MontanaWalleye.com
with pro Dale Gilbert
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Reflections on the PWT - 2003
By DALE GILBERT
Montana walleye pro
Wow! What a Great experience!
This past year was a very interesting year for me. This was my third year of fishing the Western Division Professional Walleye Trail circuit. The highlight of the year and probably my fishing career was finishing in the top 10 of the Western Division and qualifying to fish the PWT Championship at Houghton, Michigan.
Now that I have had a little time to recuperate from all of the driving and loss of sleep, I have been thinking a lot about what I learned this year. It amazes me, how fishing for walleyes is a continuing learning process. Not that I ever felt like I knew it all, it just that new things keep happening to really reinforce some of those things you have read or heard others talk about.
I had a great time this year on the circuit, meeting a lot of really good people who pre-fished with me or fished as my amateur partners. I saw a lot of country I would have never gotten to - from the Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota to the Keeweenaw Waterway on the Upper Peninsula in northern Michigan.
Although I never really did exceptionally well in any one of the tournaments I fished this year, I accumulated enough points to end up 10th overall in the Western Division PWT standings. This happened from being able to be fairly consistent in putting fish in the boat. In each tournament, I ended up with two pretty good days, and one day where I didn't fair so well. Probably the biggest lesson reinforced was again to be versatile, and not to get hung up on one presentation. Although I caught fish using different presentations this season, when I had good luck for several days using one presentation - I didn't change when I should have and decided to "do or die" - doing what I had been doing. At the PWT Mobridge SD tournament on Lake Oahe, I dropped from 3rd place after day two to 32nd the last day. The sad part is I new the fish I had been catching were still there, I could see them on my Lowrance X 19 but I couldn't get them to bite trolling the crankbaits like I had been doing. Although I thought off an on during the day about changing, I didn't. I think I only weighed one fish the last day. Oh well, live and learn - and obviously hindsight is a lot better, however, I will never know for sure whether I would have gotten more fish by changing my presentation, but I believe I would have. More often than not, if what you are doing is not working, changing your presentation can make a major difference and you shouldn't be afraid to give something else a try. In this case, I could have downsized the crankbait I had been using or gone to a slower presentation with live bait - in either case, within a short time I would have found out if a change would have made the difference or not. Especially considering that I was still marking a good number of fish - just like I had for the previous few days.
One of the new items I used this year was a Navionics Hot Map MMC card - which for Lake Oahe showed the lake contours right on my GPS unit screen. I was actually able to see the underwater points I was trolling over and I was able to just hit the ends of them. I understand the company is working on a chip for Montana - and when it becomes available, I wouldn't be without it. You can check the availability of these maps on line at http://www.navionics.com/ . They come on a MMC (Multi Media Card) that fits into GPS units like the Lowrance Global Maps, X-15, X-19 etc. and work with the GPS function.
At the PWT Bay City tournament on Lake Pepin which is on the Mississippi River south of Minneapolis, I had two pretty good days and then conditions changed and I didn't. Something I have never seen before, happened on day three. The may fly hatch really got active and the fish were coming up off the bottom and feeding on the may flies all the way to the surface. I could see fish on the Lowrance X19 graph that were suspending, but I didn't think they were walleyes. On day two, my amateur partner said "there's a 10# 'eye right on the surface" -- problem was I didn't believe him. If I had run a suspended crankbait, I may have been able to pick up some of the more active feeding fish. Again, live and learn. Although, I have never really fished for suspended fish, I have learned this year, that in a lot of cases it pays to run at least one of your baits suspended just to cover the chances of fish suspending. Particularly, if they are suspending, your boat will spook them and you generally aren't able to see them on your graph. The best method is using a side planer board and setting your bait to run a distance behind the board that makes the bait run suspended. This could be any where from several feet above the bottom to just a few feet under the surface - it pays to experiment and see. If you are marking fish up off the bottom, don't be afraid to run the bait 5,6, maybe as much as 8 feet above them since they will come up to feed but if you are fishing under them, you won't get bit.
At both the Lake Oahe and Lake Pepin tournaments, I ended up trolling crankbaits using leadcore line. This presentation is something I would really suggest you try if you haven't - especially if you are spending time on Ft Peck next summer. One of the advantages of the lead core is that because of the larger line diameter it follows the path of the boat more than when using a thinner line like Berkley Fireline. The lead core can be an advantage when trying to follow a certain depth contour. Also, it is possible to more effectively present a crankbait with the leadcore, because you can also use speed to raise or lower the depth a particular bait is running. If you go over a hump, speed up and the resistance against the line will raise the crankbait, as you get past the hump, slow down and the lead core will actually drop the crankbait down the side of the hump - it can be very effective. At times I trolled these bait up to 3 miles per hour - which is faster than I normally would troll, but sometimes this is what it took to trigger a strike.
Also, if you haven't tried some of the newer Rapala Jointed Shad Raps, I would suggest you do. They have been very successful for me this past season. They can be trolled on the lead core line at very slow speeds - down to 1 mph, and put fish in the boat. I see that Rapala has now come out with a Glass Shad Rap that has a transparent prismatic body that will pick up surrounding colors and throw a descent glow even in low light. After seeing how some other prismatic crankbaits have worked, I am really anxious to give some of these a try.
At the Lake of the Woods tournament, I caught 16 of the 18 fish I weighed in the tournament using a Mack's Lure smile blade with a two-hook crawler harness. On day one, I spent four hours on what I thought was my number one spot without a fish - then finally moved on to my 2nd spot and ended up in 100th place with a limit of smaller fish. On day two, I spent the first 1 ½ hours on my number one spot with only one fish - then moved to my number two spot and moved up 35 places. On day three, I finally just gave up on the number one spot and went straight to my number two spot and moved up another 35 places in the standings. Again, the point was that what I was doing on my number one spot wasn't working and I probably should have adjusted sooner on day one and I may have had a better day. When what you are doing isn't working - don't be afraid to try something else - or in this case another spot. In this case I wasted 5 hours of the first day between the extra time spent traveling between spots and the four hours without a bite - four hours is too much time without a bite.
At the Championship I had found three areas I wanted to concentrate on in the tournament. Unfortunately, about 40 of the other Pro's decided on the one spot too. The 2nd spot is actually where the tournament was won. I fished it for about an hour the 1st day without a fish and left it. The bite was very slow and this is when a person would have been better to just stick it out and wait for the 4-5 bites per day. Unfortunately, I didn't do this and those that did - faired a lot better. What I actually saw was that a particular time of the day seemed to be when the fish would go on a feed - you needed to be in the right spot at the right time. Unfortunately for me it was about 2:30 to about 3:30 pm and by that time I had given up and moved on looking for another bite. So the lesson learned is to read the bite - as slow as it was for everyone, sitting on what you know and scratching a few bites is better than going and looking for fish. Oh well, live and learn and chalk it up to a good experience. I guess that is what I like about walleye fishing it is always a challenge.
The Upper Peninsula in Michigan is very pretty country and the people were exceptionally supportive and helpful for those of us who were there. We were treated like royalty in the community and I am hoping I get another chance to go back and try again.
I am looking forward to giving the Western Division another try next year and am hoping to take what I have learned and do better. I would encourage anyone thinking about fishing a tournament as an amateur to go for it. It is amazing how much you can learn from others. If you are considering fishing a tournament, try to get there a few days before and more than likely you can find someone to go out and pre-fish with. This sometimes is the best experience you can get since you can be a part of working out a pattern or system of locating and catching fish - and a lot less pressure than in the tournament.
Sincere thanks to all of my friends here in Montana who have supported me and wished me well all year. I hope the above will help put a couple more fish in your boat. Good Luck Fishing.
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Dale R. Gilbert
44 Foxtail Lane
Ulm, MT 59485
Phone: 406-866-3304
Cell: 406-788-3824
E-mail Dale
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