My Dad and I hit the road early Saturday Morning to try and get a headstart on the long haul to Carmi. Images of previous trips were still fresh in my mind and my excitement levels began to rise. Big Pike, Slab Perch, Hogger Eyes and Tank Smallies are all attributes that make Carmi probably one of my favorite lakes to fish. After stopping at a store in Jeffersonville to pick up some crawlers and be tortured by the delicious smell of fresh fried doughnuts, it wasn’t long before the motor was cranking and we were on our way to another day on the water. With worm harnesses strapped on to our bottom bouncers it wasn’t two minutes before I was hooked up. Half a crawler later, our first walleye was in the boat. My toes were crossed as I put it up to the bump board, knowing that the fish had a good chance of seeing the water again. Sixteen inches on the mark and a sigh of relief knowing that we had struck first blood on our meat run. Open the cooler, flop, SLAM, and back to fishing. With my bottom bouncer trolling the depths and planer boards ready for the possible suspended predator, I was confident in our setup. Next thing you know I am hooked up with another Walleye which is netted with ease by my partner. Sixteen and three quarter inches long and just a hair over a pound and a half. Open the cooler, flop, SLAM, and back to fishing.
With the clock nearing nine O’clock and the cooler being filled with the fixings for a tasty fish fry, my bouncing rod doubled over. When I grabbed hold and set the hook I knew I had a better fish on, but it wasn’t really fighting all that much. All I felt was a dead weight with a head shake here and there. It wasn’t until the fish saw the boat that it began to show its true colors. She made one or two drag peeling runs before finally falling victim to my net man. As we hoisted the fish into the boat I knew it was going to be my 19 plus incher for the day. Yup, 21 inches and some change. Not a monster by any means, but still a solid eye. Open the cooler, thud, SLAM, and back to fishing. By the end of the day, My Dad had landed a 22 and a 16 incher, along with a decent smallie, a seed or two, and a handful of perch. My tally for the day was four walleye with three ranging from 15.5 to 16.8 inches and my 21 incher as well as a couple panfish.
Quick Tip: I noticed that we were only able to catch walleye heading into the wind and, knowing that fish like to congregate on wind blown shores, maybe this has something to do with the fish’s direction of travel and us trolling “Against the flow.” This may or may not be in correlation to the wind or not, but it seems like everytime we go walleye fishing, especially, we always catch noticeably more fish trolling in a certain direction (usually into the wind). Just something to try.
