Gord Schultz

In my last article I talked about how tournament anglers differ from weekend anglers. One of my favorite questions to ask at each Walleye School is “How many people keep a log book for fishing”. When I asked this question at our first school no one raised their hand which shocked me. Look we all aren’t getting any younger and we all think we will remember everything, but you’d be surprised how quickly we forget.
I know this sounds obvious but your log book will help you year after year with such important information as bait choice, color, water temperature, wind and weather conditions and of course that secret spot you found.
Write it down: When I first started keeping a log book it was a small pad and pencil with a string attached to it. I used to keep track of the size and weight of fish, weather information such as wind direction, cloudy or sunny and time of day and of course a rough idea of where the spot was since I didn’t own a GPS back then. This used to take me no more than 30 seconds after I caught a fish and after a few trips out it wasn’t a hassle at all.
Use your electronics to record: Once I could afford a quality GPS/Sonar combo I was able to start to use this to its full potential. All the information I used to write down I now save it right on my GPS with the simple push of a couple of buttons. Anytime I or anyone in my boat catches a fish I hit the “WPT” (waypoint) button twice right away. This marks the spot and allows me to continue to fight the fish. Once I have landed the fish I can either go ahead and measure and weigh it or put it in my livewell and continue to fish. Once the bite slows down or I have a free second I go back to that waypoint and edit it with all the necessary information. Now depending on what GPS/Sonar you have there are only a certain amount of characters you can use so we’ve gotten creative on how we name our waypoints. For example if I caught a 22″ walleye trolling, we would edit our waypoint to say 22WRRWT175. What this stands for is: 22 for the size in inches of the walleye, W stands for Walleye (LM = Large Mouth, LT = Lake Trout, etc.), RR stands for Reef Runner (the bait we were using), WT stands for the color we were using and 175 stands for how many feet behind the board the bait was running. The beauty of this is the GPS already has the exact location in the way point and we described what and how we caught a fish. The only information that is missing is the weather which in some of the newer units you have a comments box where this information can be saved, or if you have an older unit you will have write down the weather in your paper log book.
Don’t forget to back it up: After your day of fishing make sure you copy all your waypoints to a SD card in case something happens to your unit. You can also import these waypoints into other software such as NavPlanner (http://www.navionics.com) which will allow you to load, edit, save your waypoints and other information from your GPS. You can view or edit all of this on your laptop/computer and in turn take that information back to your GPS unit. I know this sounds advanced, but it is really quite simple to do (which we will cover off in a future article)

Helps you plan your day of fishing: As I mentioned in my last article about being prepared having all your old waypoints, what you caught and what you caught them with will give you an extra advantage when you head out fishing. Before you even hit the lake you will have several spots you can try, you’ll know what the depth and structure is and you have a record of what worked in the past. There is no guarantee that the fish will be in those spots or those techniques you used will work this year but at least you have a good starting spot for your day and more importantly when you’re done that day of fishing and you’ve logged all your catches you’ll have even more information for the next time you head out.
I know what you are thinking “it takes too much time”, but taking that extra minute to record this important information every time you catch a fish will help you become a better angler in the long run. No matter how great you think your memory is there is way too much information to remember when you catch a fish and with the excitement and adrenaline going when your reeling in writing it down right afterwards will make sure you have that information for years to come.

Well for the last 3 weeks Sheldon and I have been busy with our Walleye School and prefishing for a tournament last weekend, and with another 2 tournaments in the next 2 weeks this was the only weekend in May that was available to spend with the family.
I’ve always wanted to see what the Laker bite was like on Big Rideau and with the opener this weekend it was the perfect time to give it a try. I checked the usual sites for any advice and spoke to a few locals and put the game plan together. The plan was trolling on Saturday and jigging on Sunday. It was also nice to fish my son extra rod… I mean Emmerson

We headed out a little late on Saturday and for once it wasn’t my fault. Emmerson normally gets up around 6:00 AM every day so I told him Friday night to wake me up and we’ll head out. I get a tap on the shoulder at 7:10 AM with “Dad I slept in”. No problem, grabbed our snacks and headed down to the dock and off we went. Made it to the Laker grounds in about 15 minutes (That darn no wake zone at Rideau Ferry) and we were fishing right away. We were using slide divers with spoons, one a West River Cooper/Silver and the other was Emmerson’s pick a small watermelon spoon that I’ve had for about 10 years and never used (see where this is going?). We were fishing in 60′ – 90′ of water and they were spread out from 30′ – 60′ down. Our lines were running at 25′ and 35′. It wasn’t long until the first rod fired and we had our first Laker ever on Big Rideau. Emmerson did an awesome job on the reeling

We managed a few more around the same size and the bite seemed to stop around 11:00 AM which was perfect time because we had to meet up with one of Emmerson’s friends at his cottage nearby.

The next day I tried something that I’ve never done before for Lakers and that was jigging. We were using 1 1/2oz snakie jigging spoons and the hot colour for the day was silver. We managed 4 for the day biggest was 23″. All we did were long drifts, letting out line until we hit bottom, jigged 3 – 4 times, reeled in a bit, jigging 3 – 4 times, rinse, repeat until it was at the boat and then dropped down again. It was tons of fun when they hit and they hit like a ton of bricks. It was also a nice chance to try my new live bait rod out.

All in all it was great weekend of fishing and spending time with the family. The best news came yesterday when we were at a friend’s cottage down the lake and Emmerson was out fishing with his buddy, he managed to find us a good crappie spot that we plan to try later this week. Looking forward to Wednesday night with the ORWL gang and then some crappie fishing on Thursday before heading down to Quinte for our next tournament.

We another weekend of fishing has come to an end and this one couldn’t end soon enough. The winds in Southern Ontario were a little bit crazy this weekend. The coast guard has small craft warnings with gusts over 100 Km as well as the forecast on windguru had the winds gusting over 80km and it changed every direction throughout the day so even if you found a nice quiet bay within an hour or so the wind would change direction and you would be on the move again in some pretty bad waves. We started our morning with some calm water and managed to check out a few spots for our upcoming tournament on the 16th, but we only managed a few hours and we were sent packing by the brutal winds.

We did find a great spot to spend our afternoon on the Trent river. We were completely sheltered from the wind and made for a great afternoon of fishing. On our way back to West Lake Willows we drove through Wellington and were able to see how bad Lake Ontario was, and it was bad. Some very high waves that were in 4 – 6 foot range, along with some large rollers. The best part of the weekend was once again spending time with the ORWL guys and even though we didn’t get a lot of fishing done, the poker game and swapping of stories always makes for a fun time.

One the most interesting questions Sheldon and I get at our walleye schools and seminars is “what makes a tournament angler better than the weekend warrior”. I always chuckle when I hear this question. I’m sure if you asked anyone who fishes tournaments they don’t consider themselves better anglers, they are just more prepared for their day of fishing and have the ability to quickly change techniques on the fly.

Each year I’m sure you have seen guys on your local lake going to the same community hole fishing the same technique year after year after year. Now I’m sure they are having success otherwise while would they keep going back to that spot, but what happens when that spot isn’t paying off? This is where tournament anglers have an bigger advantage. They don’t bet the farm fishing one spot for a tournament, instead they have several spots. They do this in case the wind kicks up or the weather is bad or even worse if someone beats them to their spot. Tournament anglers will have spots for the morning and the afternoon, the point is they will have several spots they can go to catch fish not just that one community hole.
There are a number of things you can do to put yourself into a better position to have a successful day fishing. Let’s start off a few days in advance using the internet as your first resource tool.

Weather & Wind: Check the weather and the winds a few days in advance to see how this will impact the body of water you’re fishing. There are several good sites out there to use from Wind Guru (www.windguru.com), Intellicast (www.intellicast.com), environment Canada (www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/canada_e.html) and even the weather network (www.theweathernetwork.com). There is now a great feature on the new Lowrance HDS units where you can get Sirus Satelite Weather information right on your HDS unit, so you can get up to the minute weather right out on the water.  These will give you an idea of what the weather is leading up to your day of fishing (High pressure front, low pressure front, etc.) and what the winds are doing. If you have several days of a strong wind blowing in the same direction there is a good chance that the bait has been blown in that direction and in turn the walleye will follow.

Fishing Sites: When I was younger I would get my fishing reports from family and friends or pull into the local tackle shop to get the latest info, now you can do some of this from the comfort of your own home. Fishing discussion boards have exploded over the last five years and there is ton’s of great information out there, from tips and tricks and even fishing reports on the body of water you plan on fishing. In most of the reports there are pictures where you can see shorelines, other points of interest and in some cases the bait they were using. You would be surprised how this will help you plan your day on the water.

Check your Maps: Now that you know what the weather and winds are, and you’ve checked the fishing boards for that extra information the next step is to review a map of the lake and start to put together your game plan for the day. Depending on the time of year you can eliminate water by just looking at a map. For example in the spring you would look for post spawn walleye near creek or river mouths that feed into the lake. Chances are you will see a nice flat or a deep hole in front or nearby where those walleye will go to recover and prepare to put the feed bag on. Take the time to look at a map and plan the spots you would like to check out so you’re not going out there blind.

Have your gear ready to go: I know this seems obvious, but take the time to prepare your gear and your boat. More time is wasted when your messing around with tackle or your boat. If you plan on spending the day bottom bouncing or jigging make sure you have you jigs or bouncers already tied on. This is also a good time to make sure you have enough live bait or your favorite artificial baits on board. I’ve fished with people in the past and when I reached into their rod lockers, I pulled out a rod and the line wasn’t threaded through eyes. I then spent good fishing time rigging a rod instead of fishing. One last thing to remember, please make sure your batteries are charged, nothing sucks more than launching the boat and the motor won’t turn over or the trolling motor battery is dead.

Trust your Electronics: The latest and greatest sonar and GPS combos out there are giving us more and more information but for some reason some angler’s ignore it. Walleye tournament anglers will pull up to a spot, mark nothing on the sonar and leave right away to the next spot. They won’t waste their time fishing in a spot where there are no fish, they trust their electronics that much.

Switch it up: If you are marking fish on your sonar and can’t get them to go, then it’s time for a change. A change doesn’t necessarily mean changing techniques, it could be as simple as speeding up or slowing down, or changing the color of your bait. A good rule of thumb is change it up every 15 – 30 minutes until you figure out what the walleye want. Don’t run the same bait all day in the same area hoping that technique will work. Once again I know this sounds obvious, but I have seen it several times while fishing where someone gets locked into a bad pattern and just won’t change.

More Research: Anglers are always looking for the next best thing in fishing, whether it’s a new bait, technique, or just a new twist on an old technique. Take the time to read all the great articles in the numerous fishing magazines, or blogs, tackle suppliers websites and you tube. If there is a seminar in your area go and spend some time listening to the speakers, even if you think you know it all trust me you don’t. You will always be able to pick up something from a seminar.

Local fishing club/Guides: There are a number of local hunting and fishing clubs out there with some great members in them. Most of these clubs have very cheap membership dues and offer you the chance to be around like minded anglers like yourself. Not only will you pick up some great information but who knows you may find yourself several new fishing buddies who you can learn from. If you fish with the same person over and over chances are you aren’t going to pick up anything new, invite someone new to come out with you and your fishing buddy or go in their boat, you’ll pick up little thing from each person you fish with and it will help you become a better angler. Another option is to hire a guide to take you out for the day. Most guides spend several hours on the water each week and know several techniques. This is great chance to not only find some new spots but to also learn from a pro.

Get out on the Water: The best advice I’ve gotten over the years is you have to put in your time on the water. If you want to get better at something you need to put your time in. Tiger Woods didn’t become one of the best golfer’s out there by golfing once a week. Get out on the water as much as you can (or as much as your better half will let you get away with). The more time you spend on perfecting your techniques or finding new spots the more fun fishing will become.

Well hopefully you will start to see why tournament anglers are more prepared when they are on the water. They put themselves into a position to catch fish and hopefully cash a big cheque. By doing all of this (and more)it will increase your chances to catch more fish. Remember these guys aren’t lucky, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Best of luck and tight Lines!

Since 2008 NPAA members Sheldon Hatch (#928) and Gord Schultz (#553) have continued to grow their Ezelo Walleye Institute (EWI) on the Bay of Quinte. They are pleased to announce the addition of Fin-tech Tackle Company as an official sponsor of their school.

Each day the students will start their day in the classroom learning techniques such as trolling, jigging, rigging, bottom bouncing, electronics and boat control. In the afternoon they take the classroom on the water in their tournament boats so the students can put into practice what they learned.

While presenting seminars Sheldon and Gord have found the information is difficult for anglers to digest. The classroom and on the water experience reinforces the learning process and makes for a fun and educational weekend.

Once again this year the school will be held at West Lake Willows Resort http://www.westlakewillows.com.

For more information on EWI and future class dates please visit http://www.ezelo.com/ezelowalleyeinst.html

For more information on Fin-tech and their products please visit http://www.jigfish.com

Well the winter wait is over and the walleye season has finally come. Once again I spent my opener on the Bay of Quinte with my fishing partner Sheldon for our annual spring walleye school. We had another great school this year with a bunch of great guys from all over Ontario, New York and Indiana. It’s really great to see guys who have heard of a technique, but never tried it before become very comfortable by the end of the school. The good news this year was the weather and more importantly the winds held off so it made for an easy time on the water.

This year Fin-tech fishing tackle was one of our key sponsors and each of the students walked away with a nice tackle pack.

Now the tournament season starts off with some pre-fishing with the ORWL folks this weekend then our first tournament on the 16th.

 In Sheldon’s blog he wrote about the best way to open you Gulp Alive containers so it doesn’t leak all over the place. This got me thinking that there are a bunch of things we have figured out to make life easier while we are out fishing. What better place to share some of these ideas then here?

My first simple idea is for your bottom bouncers. No I’m not going to show you a bottom bouncer bag or even some substitute that you can use for a bouncer bag. Instead one of the issues I used to have was when I was running from spot to spot or just storing my bouncer rods in the rod locker with the bouncer still attached. Sure I used to just cut the bouncer off and retie the next day, but I found out the hard way when fishing a tournament that spending time re tying isn’t the best way to spend my time especially when the walleye are hitting.

We tried Velcro straps which wasn’t too bad until the straps blew out of the boat or just went missing and then it hits us. We simply took the bouncer and wrapped it around the reel. This allowed us to store our rods in the locker with the bouncers still attached or we could lay the rods down in the boat and not worry about the bouncer smacking the rod or anything else in the boat.

Now please don’t the vision in your head of us bending the wire in a bunch of different ways to make it stick, instead let me share some photo’s with you to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Well it’s been a tough season of ice fishing and with only a few trips out I really can’t blame the fish for not cooperating. I can hear my brother-in-law saying that I need to start putting more time on the ice if I want more success (I hate it when he’s right). The lull between ice season and open water season is upon us. What to do, what to do?

For the last few days I’ve spent my time dusting off all my rods and reels and took a quick inventory to see what I’m going to need for this year’s tournament season. One of this year’s rod purchase is going to be a live bait rod. Last year was the first time in a long time that I came back to this technique and I forgot how much I love it. Well this year I can see myself using technique quite a bit especially in our 3rd tournament of the season on Matagami in early June. The great news is G-Loomis has their new Walleye series rods and one of their new Walleye Rig Rod’s (WRR8501SGLX) will be here shortly. I can’t wait to fish with this rod.

I think I spent close to 4 hours this week re-spooling line which has to be a new record for me. Can you tell the cabin fever has really set in? This also gave me a chance to pour through the boxes of tackle and place my orders for this year. One of the products I’m anxious to try out are the new Mustad double wide live bait hooks (Model # 10548R). Once again we can thank Gary Parson & Keith Kavajecz for another great design improvement on an already terrific hook. These new hooks have a much wider gap and a shorter shank which will help with hook ups. With the shorter shank when you set the hook the hook will now hinge easier upward into the roof of the walleye’s mouth. Bennett’s Bait and tackle (Smiths Falls) and Bits and Baits (Stittsville) will be stocking these, if they haven’t already got them in.

Well Sheldon and I also confirmed our Walleye Schools and tournament schedule for the season, and we certainly have a busy May and June. The Walleye school on West lake is now sold out on May 1 & 2. This is the second year we have done the spring school at Westlake Willows and we have sold out early both years, so a big thank you to all the folks that signed up. This year’s spring school will be full of great information on spring walleye techniques, mapping and sonar and of course getting out on the water which this year we will do one day on West Lake and the next on the Bay of Quinte.
The next event that Sheldon and I are getting ready for is the Carp Show. Sheldon had an excellent idea this year with explaining what you see on your sonar screen and then what technique we would use to catch those fish. Sheldon also has some very cool stuff on side imaging and down scan to share at this year’s seminar as well. We will also be in the Bits and Baits booth each day of the show for a few hours after our seminar. Make sure you drop by and say hi.

Keep an eye out in the next few weeks for my live bait rigging article.

This turned out to be a pretty good week of fishing overall even though the start of the week wasn’t so great.  I went to my Carp spot to see if the bite was on.  When I arrived they were jumping which is always an excellent sign.  Baited up the area and sent my boiles a flying and sat down with the radio on.  After 4 hours of no hits and several weeds on my hooks I gave up for the day.  On Wednesday Sheldon and I planned a pre fish of Mississippi Lake for our Walleye School.  We launched out of 9A and within 10 minutes we were on fish.  I was running a 2 ounce bottom bouncer with a spinner rig and a juicy night crawler and before I could get the rod into the holder we had our first walleye.  Sheldon was running a Flicker Shad and the crankbait bite wasn’t too hot.  By the time he switched over to a slow death setup I had landed 6 walleye.  Even though the fishing was awesome we had to move and check our other spots.  The fishing slowed down in these spots even though we were marking several fish on bottom.  After about an hour of checking these spots we headed back to our starting point and the bite was still hot.  We finished off the night 17 for 18 with the smallest eye being around 15″ and the biggest at 19″.

Saturday came with some rainy weather, but we and our students braved it out and it turned out to be a great decision.  We started the day at a local restaurant and covered off what we would be teaching for the day.  Chris and Dave were awesome students, they fishing backgrounds were a little different but they both knew how to handle a rod that’s for sure.  We made the run from the Carleton Place launch to one of our spots and we started to mark fish right away.  We covered off how to run and rig bottom bouncers and hit that area for about 20 minutes.  By that time to rain had stopped but the walleye in this spot had lock jaw.  We headed to our second spot and we were on fish within 10 minutes.  In fact Chris caught his first walleye.  Sheldon will post the pictures in his blog.  Not to be outdone Dave started getting into the walleye as well.  He seemed to have the hot stick for the first 30 minutes.  He caught some nice walleye, but also a nice Pike and some very fat Sun fish.  We took the time to show Chris and Dave how to tie their own spinner rigs and what was cool is they ran them and caught fish with them.  We left that spot and covered some more trolling techniques with crankbaits, planer boards and lead core.  That type of bite was working that day and after about an hour of that we went back to bottom bouncing and started to get back into the walleye.  It was a great day on the water and we hoped Chris and Dave learned a lot.

Well Sheldon and I have finished our first tourney of the year and even though we didn’t get the win we were looking for we still had a good time and it was good to be in tournament mode.  We were 12th on blast off but we quickly passed most of the field to get to the prime spot.  We dropped our first bottom bouncer and spinner and didn’t even get a chance to have it hit bottom when Sheldon yelled fish on.  Quickly reeled him in and into the live well she went.  Great start to the day.  We trolled the damn area for another 2 – 2&1/2 hours without anything hitting.  Sheldon and I agreed to move to our next spot.  We arrived to our 2nd spot to find quite a few people fishing for perch.  Since it wasn’t going to be a good place to troll we made the 18 mile run to the Raisin River.  We fished in the river for another 3&1/2 hours and caught some beautiful bass but no Walleye’s.  We did see the Ministry out once again doing it’s checks.  We had a chat with him and he told us that he issued 16 fines so far ranging from no license to people keeping Bass.

After we left the river and ran back to that spot I was speaking about earlier we started our troll without any success.  We went back to where our day started to see if we could add to our numbers.  When we arrived we noticed four of the boats from the this morning were still there.  We chatted with a few of them as we made our pass and they told us they hadn’t landed anything.  We ran back to the weigh in and the top weight was 24 pounds.  This team ran to the locks and fished another section of the river where they were last week when they won a tournament.  Second place came in around 11 pounds and 3 and forth were about the same.  Afterwards at Don’ Cherry’s they handed out the cheques and the many prizes.  Luc (the gentlemen who organized the tournament) did an awesome job with the tourney as well as the prizes.  Next year we’ll make sure we both have our New York State licenses and we will expand out fishing grounds.  Still an great time though.