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Walleye fishing is very different in different parts of the country. I fished in a few parts of Michigan, & Minnesota (East, West, and Southern LOW, Upper Red, & some local lakes around Twin Cities, and Fergus Falls).
I was VERY surprised when I seen what was considered a "Keeper" when I first started fishing Minnesota.
Once when fishing LOW before the slot limit was started, I spent a day throwing back every fish I caught under 15", as I naturally thought that that was a reasonable limit (I was suprised that at the time there was no size limit !!).
I never took home any fish from there, as we get all the walleyes we want here at home. I gave all my walleyes to the local guys that were my fishing partners. When they seen I had thrown all those good eating 12" to 15" fish back, they were none to pleased with me!!
Here at home we consider a 19" fish fairly small. A very average size in Eastern Lake Erie, and lake Ontario is 21 to 25".
An 8 or 9 pound walleye doesn't even turn a head to look at it around here.
Where we fish, the water is at least 50 to 120' deep. Walleyes don't have much chance of living when pulled up from much deeper than 40 or 50 feet.
It's fairly common for 2 guys to bring home 40 to 50 pounds of walleyes for a days fishing. I went out with a couple friends last June out of Barcelona NY, and the 3 of us could legally bring home 15 fish. The 70 quart cooler was overfilled when we had 12 fish, and 2 ice bottles in the cooler, so we quit.
They recently raised the limit on the NY side of Erie from 4 to 5 walleyes, and from 4 to 6 on the Canadian side because of the increase numbers of available fish.
9 and 10 pounders are not uncommon in Erie, and 15 pounders come out of Ontario all the time. In the walleye contest they have here in Western NY they pay the top 200 fish. You better have close to 10 pounds if you hope to win anything. It's just bigger water, with a lot more food for the walleyes in it.

It doesn't make the fishing any better in any one place just because of the size of the fish. I love to drive to Minnesota, just to fish with friends. And the type of fishing we do for the walleyes (mostly jigging) can be a lot more fun than trolling for the big fish on Erie...

But they all sure taste good !!

And if anyone tells you that big walleyes don't taste as good as small ones, your talking to someone that doesn't know how to clean big fish !!

10 pounds 9 ounces

[Linked Image]

Typical 4 fish limit (limit is now 5)

[Linked Image]

10 pounds 2 oz.

[Linked Image]

two 4 fish limits, holding a 13 pound 4 oz. walleye
Total fish weight 52.5 pounds

[Linked Image]


How can you not love fishing !!!!



Old Fishermen never die, we just get reel tired.

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May you stay......Forever young
GB2

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our throw back slot is 19.5" to 28"

I typically like to see 15" to 19" fish for keepers.



Something clever here.

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Oh, and BGunn, I want to go fishing with you bigtime!! lol!!

Awesome fish!!


Something clever here.

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I'll have to admit it's fun when you find a 10+ pound Walleye on your line.
They try to stay glued to the bottom right up until their about right under your boat in about 60 to 85 feet of water. THEN the fight begins!!

I'm no better than any other average walleye fishing nut at this end of Lake Erie. Any summer day when the waves are 4' or under, there's an army of us out there trying our best to drown as many worms as possible!

We do a lot of perching also. The perch fishing is great, and a limit of 50 isn't hard to get if you know what your doing in the spring and the fall.

[Linked Image]

Right during the best fishing this last November I had a bit of an emergency and had to go in the hospital for 5 days. My buddy and I limited the day before, and I had the boat all hooked up and set to go in the morning.
While in the hospital my buddy couldn't resist calling and rubbing it in how great the fishing was. 3 guys in the boat, the first 50 fish they only kept fish over 9". After that they only kept over 10" fish, and boated 86 more !! At that point I really hated that hospital !!

The last few days I've been installing a new Minn Kota Terrova 80 W/i-Pilot on the boat, & tying up some perch rigs, and worm harnesses. I can't wait for spring to get here (and I haven't even been out on the ice for perch yet, but will this weekend). I love getting out on the boat.
Some of the brighter colored harnesses below I tied up to try on lake trout on Lake Ontario this summer.
I do best on "Watermellon" harnesses for walleyes.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Like I said, most of our fishing is daytime trolling deep water. That's when you pick up the bigger fish. One of my favorite things to do here though, is troll shallow water reefs at night. It is super productive most of the time (I have limited 6 fish in Canadian water in 52 minutes !!) but the fish generally run smaller at 4 to 7 pounds. It's a lot like jigging for them, because your always holding the fishing rod in your hands and you always feel the hits. Sometimes they'll hit your plug 2 or 3 times and get off before finialy hooking up, and that's exciting when it's a bigger fish !!

Here's that 70 quart box of 12 fish we brought in last July. It weighed up at 26 1/4 pounds of skinless fillets.

[Linked Image]

Dave,
You would be more than welcome to come and fish with us here. There's ALWAYS room in the boat for a Minnesotan, but ya gotta promise to leave the Lutefisk home !

A few years ago were fishing out of Arnesen's Rocky Point Resort in 2 of their overnight shantys. I was with 7 of my friends from Minnesota. To be initiated into the "Finn's Clan", they insisted that I ate an entire package of Lutefisk.

I still don't know if it was worth it...


[Linked Image]

Even after that though, we had a lot of fun there..

[Linked Image]

Now the group stays at Walsh's Bay Store Camp on Oak Island at the NW Angle. It's a great place, but I haven't made it up in a couple years. I spent a lot of money on a new John Deere Tractor, and a New Boat (Starcraft 196), so the wallet is in the deflated state right now.

[img:center]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/2652330/394282909.jpg[/img]


Old Fishermen never die, we just get reel tired.

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May you stay......Forever young
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Well it sure sounds like you're doing things right! That's an awesome boat by the way. Makes me miss my lund fisherman 1800


Something clever here.

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I sold my Lund 1650 after I got this one...

[Linked Image]


Old Fishermen never die, we just get reel tired.

May you build a ladder to the stars
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May you stay......Forever young
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we keep the ones that go between 1.5 and maybe 6 pounds to eat and throw back most the bigger ones unless we decided we are gonna put it on the wall.....course if we aint catching chit all day and pull in a 10 pounder that SOB is going on the grill grin


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Originally Posted by noduck
Tedhorn, so do you guys keep like 22" or bigger and fillet them or what???

We have differ slot limits up here for certain lakes.. But for the most part I put back anything over 19".....


Eat them all!!!!


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A picture from Saturday 8.5 miles out on the lake.

[Linked Image]


Something clever here.

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I'm tellin' you Dave,

YOU ARE THE KING !!!

Good luck out there !!

Bill


Old Fishermen never die, we just get reel tired.

May you build a ladder to the stars
and climb on every rung.
May you stay......Forever young
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That's one badass set up, looks like the work has been worth it.


You've got to hand it to a blind prostitute
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If we remember the camera we'll post up some new pics.

Campfire member colorado1135 is coming up to fish with me and my oldest boy today. We have some lake house towing to do tonight with the tracked rig and tomorrow we'll use said tracked rig to trek across no mans land to the walleye slaying grounds.

Someone could end up with a trophy Walleye tomorrow, hate to jinx it but it could happen, I'm feelin it...


Something clever here.

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We have yet to get into any big walleyes but we managed to fill a pail with these little fish sticks.

[Linked Image]


Something clever here.

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Dave, what lake is that and how many other Tracked beasts are pulling fish houses??? I bet u turned some heads!! Thats awesome..

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Lake of the woods, US side (Minnesota)

Most other tracked rigs on the lake are guids and outfitters. There are a handful of oddballs like myself tho.



Something clever here.

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Kool..

I thought you were around Bemidji..

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Dave, a year+ since your last installment re "mellow yellow" and the family fishing--any updates and more pic's? smile

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we intended to fish yesterday, but i had broken truck stranded in the forest issues so we tended to that instead crazy



Something clever here.

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Bump for Deerwhacker444 who PM'd me questions about this house. I think this thread should cover any questions about how the house was built, why it's so ugly etc.

grin



Something clever here.

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That is too cool....No wonder you don't have time to hit the roadrunner.

If I die and am reincarnated,..I want to come back as one of Dave's kids....


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