12/30/11- Tough Bite Walleyes

My buddy Chris with the first- and biggest fish of the day- it measured 18" and had a 10" girth.  There was not a slot limit on this lake.  When I cut it open, I found that it was a female that was full of spawn.  One interesting thing that I learned about the lake was that a pink Northland forage minnow seemed to be the only thing they were interested in.

We left town well before daylight today and made the drive to a small walleye lake that has been on my hit list for quite some time.  The lack of snow this year is allowing me to drive into lakes that would normally be accessible only by snowmobile.  We had the lake to ourselves, as I had when I was here by myself a week earlier.  That trip was just productive enough that I felt the lake deserved a full day of fishing to give it a fair shake.  On the return trip, after fishing from dawn til dusk and drilling well over 100 holes, we had only 3 fish to show for our efforts.  The funny thing was that the fish caught were all taken mid-day.  Just goes to show that rules of thumb are just that.  Maybe I'll try it again some day with the canoe.