Last Call for Walleyes

[Hem]

Yup. From Lands End. Mrs. Fin wasn't to be found fishing with no dirtbagger.

You might be smarter than me, but I'm older than you, so I can inquire..

 

[shoots-straight]

All hail the Walley king and Queen Newbergs. I'll have to give it a try someday. Congrats on the "save" and the fish.

 

[INMT]

Is that a button down shirt under the jeans jacket? Asking for a friend.
Love the fishing history!!!

I was going to say I hope you still have that jean jacket!!!

Most excellent backstory.

 

[Big Fin]

I was going to say I hope you still have that jean jacket!!!

Most excellent backstory.

There's a story to that, also.

My Mom bought it for me as a Christmas present in 1989. I didn't have the "chops" to wear it as a trendy cool guy, as I had/have zero concern for fashion, so it became a fishing coat. Mrs. Fin would ask me if I had a "glitter glove" to go with my "Micheal Jackson jean jacket" and then she'd laugh out loud. It's was far better suited for a fishing jacket on cool evenings, as not a skeeter on the lake could penetrate that thing.

Eventually, our chocolate lab commandeered it as her favorite sleeping pad. She preferred that over cedar dog beds, which was just fine with me.

 

[INMT]

There's a story to that, also.

My Mom bought it for me as a Christmas present in 1989. I didn't have the "chops" to wear it as a trendy cool guy, as I had/have zero concern for fashion, so it became a fishing coat. Mrs. Fin would ask me if I had a "glitter glove" to go with my "Micheal Jackson jean jacket" and then she'd laugh out loud. It's was far better suited for a fishing jacket on cool evenings, as not a skeeter on the lake could penetrate that thing.

Eventually, our chocolate lab commandeered it as her favorite sleeping pad. She preferred that over cedar dog beds, which was just fine with me.

Even better backstory! Thanks for sharing.

Your mom has good taste in denim!

 

[seeth07]

Cool stories and family history. Shouldn't be surprised that she feel in love with walleyes in northern MN! I have yet to meet someone who has been disappointed in a trip up there. It sort of is like elk in the Rockies, pheasants in the Dakotas or halibut/salmon in SE Alaska. Once you go, you're hooked for life and can't wait to do it more and more

 

[F250]

What a refreshing thread !!! Mrs. F250 demanded a 20’ Lund Alaskan, with a 90 hp Yamaha tiller for our current walleye machine.

 

[mn taxidermist]

The hometown lakes are where she ended up with this walleye problem. When we married, she was just happy to fish, didn't matter the species. She loves to eat fish, so fishing was as much a utilitarian endeavor as it was pleasure.

My dear friend, @mn taxidermist, offered to take us to Red Lake, which was one of three "home lakes" for us; Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake being the other two. Well, the fishing on those two days was amazing, even with Dick's 14' Lund and a 15hp Evinrude. She was hooked, all pun intended. That was the summer just after we got married, so we were without a child and fishing was our pursuit. Yet, all she could talk about was walleyes on Red Lake.

Fast forward two years and we ended up in Montana, finally. By now, we had a one-year old in tow. Being on a potato soup and mac & cheese income, the idea of a boat to walleye fish seemed like something requiring a winning lottery ticket. We were relegated to trips to the Lower Madison, back when sculpins were legal bait, using our spinning gear to take home a couple brown trout each trip. That was our lot for the first three years we lived here. Bank fishing with spinners and live bait.

Two trips in particular turned her from trout fishing, avowing to fish for nothing but walleyes. One trip was high water. I needed to get out to a rock, so I put Matthew on my back and started wading. Well, you know what happened next - I hit a slimy rock, down we both went, under water, in the cold of May. Mrs. Fin watching from shore was panicking. I stood up, current to my belly button, shaking water from Matthew's mouth, and somehow didn't lose any fishing gear in my trek back to shore. That ended what should have been a good day of fishing.

A couple months later we were a bit further upstream in a deeper hole that was always good for a few browns. Sure enough, they were cooperative. Some fly fisherman wedged in just down below me and was thrashing the water with something. When I gave the second brown trout the "lead pipe treatment" it was more than that fly fisherman could handle.

He marched over the proceeded to lecture me about my stupidity of killing trout. I just looked at him with the "Too bad" glance. I had fish to catch. Then the guy said something to the effect that raising young kids to kill fish was somehow bad parenting. That was it. Mrs. Fin was not going to let some overdressed Brad Pitt-wannabe tell her about parenting and raising her son to eat fish.

I had thought about kicking his ass, tossing him in the river, or snapping his fly rod that probably cost a week of pay for me. But, Mrs. Fin had this situation under control. I just stood there, smirking, almost laughing out loud, as some urbanite tourist fly fisherman got his ass handed to him by a stay-at-home mom. He left, hastily. She was so pissed, she made us pack up and head home.

Over grilled brown trout fillets that night, she pronounced that we were getting a boat. It would eliminate her worry of her son drowning in the current, with the aid of her husband. It would get her away from the Bozeman faux-fisherman who were mostly here to show off their new costumes. It would open up the reservoirs of central and eastern Montana to her true passion - walleyes.

I thought she was joking. Nope, she was dead serious. We'd be going to MN for my younger brother's wedding in June and she intended to pick up a new Lund Rebel, a 16' er, when we were back there. Sure enough, that's what she did. Its maiden voyage was on Lake of the Woods. We also fished Red Lake. She couldn't have been happier. Where the money came from, I don't know, but with five years of marriage under my belt, I had come to learn that you don't get in the way of this woman and her fishing.

That winter she went to a boat show. Terry, the original owner of Townsend Marine and another gold old boy from Northern MN, talked her into a 17' Lund Pro-V with a 60hp Yamaha. I told her we couldn't afford two boats. She instructed me to get the other one sold, even though less than a year old, before taking delivery on the new Pro-V in May. Ok. Sold!

Since then, it has been exclusively walleye fishing. There is nothing she gets more excited about. Our manner of parenting might have had some valid critique. Matthew never got a chance to play Little League, golf, bike riding, or other things kids do. He was stuck in a boat for 40-60 days each summer.

By the time he was eight, he was fishing his first walleye tournament with me. He could run a boat as good as most men. He picked up his mother's interest in experimenting, whether with lure colors, artificial baits, depths, speeds, you name it. The number of fish we stumbled into because of his curiosity it quite remarkable.

A few boats later, four different lake lots that were supposed to be our "fish camp," and a collection of trolling rods and crankbaits that floor most guys who walk into our shop, and Mrs. Fin feels like she's just getting started. My travel with shows, events, legislation, etc screws up a lot of our summers. She's politely informed me that next summer better have 30 days of walleye fishing, "or else." Not sure what "or else" would entail, but I don't intend to find out.

At times, most times, I thought we were crazy to spend so much of our scarce disposable income on fishing, boats, gas, gear, trips. Yet, looking back and seeing how much our family benefitted from being confined to a boat for days on end, I would advocate that more families spend chunks of their disposable income on similar "frivolities."

Fishing from dark to daylight was one of Mrs. Fin's favorite times to fish. Good fishing and not much competition.
View attachment 384626
Saugers are fair game, also.
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When they fire me from this gig, you will find me in Northeast Montana, living the life of pleasure. For now, I gotta get this fish camp planned (and eventually finished) if I want to extend my hunting pass beyond this season.

Those trips to Red Lake are great memories.

 

[Brauee20]

@Big Fin before you set up a bunch of leadcore I'd suggest snap weights and tadpoles. Still requires calibrated linecounters but it's so much easier to dial in exact depths that the fish are relating to that day. Easier maintenance as well, and if something happens to a setup you can either add back mono or respool on the fly.

Use the 50+2 method and you can fish to 44ft. Precision trolling app has all the depth data and it's tested.

Examples.

Bandit, 50 foot of line, 2oz snap weights, 25 more foot out is 25 foot down.

Bandit, 50 foot of line, 2oz snap weight, 50 more foot out is 34 foot down.

We've had as many as 15 rods out at a time on Erie. It's way more manageable, especially if you're ever running boards, less line out.

Gold black backed bandit is the first crank out every trip, followed by burnt bread and nuclear squirrel.

 

[SerialScience]

Love the old pics