Greybeards Gripes

The weather cleared up a bit this morning, just in time for the latest Walleye tournament.  We decided we might as well join all the other Walleye hunters.  (didn’t enter the tourny)

We got in about 4 hours of drifting and ONE 17 inch Walleye.  The drift speed was excellent,  a pretty steady 1 mile per hour.  There just weren’t many fish biting,  they were there,  but no one was getting many hits.  I don’t know how the tournament turned out,  but going by the radio chatter,  I’d think , not to well..

On the brighter side,  the new radio in the SeaRay works great, and the old boat is running like a top.  A half dozen more filet’s and we’ll have enough for dinner. 

~~GB

It’s been to windy to get out on the Bay for the last couple of day’s,  and a few real dandy thunder boomer’s have blown through.

On the bright side though,  I’ve have offers from two different Walleye fishing veterans,  to take me out and show me how to do it.  Just gotta wait for the weather to clear up.

Today I swapped the boat radio’s.  The SeaRay had the older radio,  and the Smokercraft had the newer.  Since the SeaRay is the deep water boat,  it now has the (way)  newer radio.  We seldom take the Smokercraft out of the river,  so I’m not as likely to need to use the radio in it. 

The old Mercury (40hp twin) on the Smokercraft has been running a little rough.  Last week I pulled the carburator and cleaned it,  but it’s still a bit rough especially at low speeds.  I washed out the gas tank last week also,  so I guess the next step is to put in some fresh fuel,  some carburator cleaner,  and another new set of plugs.    The only other thing I can think of is to replace it’s weathered fuel line.

Oh yeah,  and to switch gears for a moment:  The Tickets for the Eastern Arenac Sportsmens Gun Raffle are at the printer right now.  11 cool new guns up for grabs,  and only 700 tickets to be sold ($10 a pop).  You need not be present to win,  (though it’s a fun day of free food, and shooting at the Raffle Drawing).  So if you can’t  make it to the drawing but want some tickets,  drop me an email and we’ll fix you up.  I’ll have a list of the guns at a later date.

The prize drawing, turkey shoot, and picnic,  are on Sept. 16th at the clubhouse near Twining.  Be there or be square!

~~GB

We’re still not pulling in any Walleye?  The neighbor’s went out about 10 minutes ahead of us and stayed out about an hour longer.  (They limited out,  with the biggest fish being near to 27 inches!!!)

Obviously, we’re still doing somthing wrong.  I’m guessing it’s mostly because I still don’t have a trolling motor.  When we can get a drift it’s about .5 miles per hour,  and everyone else is trolling at around 1 to 1.2 mph.  We’re all using nearly the same gear and bait,  and fishing quite close in a spread out pack,  so it’s got to be the speed.

Oh,  and a few day’s ago I spoke about coming back in over 3 footers.  The day after that,  we went out into 1.5 to 2 footers, with a nice drifting breeze,  (actually got a 1 mph drift going,  but still didn’t catch and fish).  During the day,  the waves steadily rose,  and by the time we decided to call it quits,  we had to make our way about 4 miles,  through 4 to 4.5 footers.  It wasn’t to bad quartering the waves, heading back north to the mouth of the river,  but I did a short experiment and turned dirctly across the waves.  It turned out to be very short,  the waves were pounding the ol’ Searay like a sledge hammer.

Oh well,  I hope the Walleye stay around long enough for us to figure out how to catch a few.

~~GB

We went out after Walleye again today.  We caught a few Sheepsheads,  but no Walleye. 

The old timer on shore when we returned, told us that we were about one mile east of the Walleye grounds,  and gave us coordinates for the next run.

The Searay ran like a top all day.  It was calm as could be going out in the morning,  but we had to bang through near 3 footers to get back in this evening.  Oh well,  another day, another try.

~~GB