The big boys and girls - the pros - are fishing for big walleyes in a tournament this week on western Lake Erie, and you can bet that the technique of choice will be trolling.
Trolling, when you think about it, makes abundant sense when it comes to efficiency. You can cover more water than you do when letting the boat simply drift in the wind while you cast. And a spread of lures can be maintained down in the fish-zone 100 percent of the time, unlike when casting.
Such efficiency is critical when facing the time constraints and the lure of big money, as with this week s $401,750 Wal-Mart/RCL Walleye Tournament.
The winning pro, out of a registered field of 174, will earn $50,000 plus a boat-motor-trailer rig worth another $40,000. The top amateur, or co-angler - one of which is teamed randomly each day with a pro - will win $15,000. Weigh-ins today and tomorrow will be at 4 p.m. at the Wal-Mart store, State Rt. 163, east of Port Clinton.
The weather this week has been all over the map - weather map, that is, blowing warm and cold, then warm again. Jim Fofrich Jr., a Toledo guide who is not fishing in the Wal-Mart event, said he took walleye to 30 inches Sunday, but fish east of Kelleys Island seemed to go into thermal shock when it turned cold afterward. Some boats fished in snow squalls Tuesday just east of Toledo.
“If it warms up those big fish are going to get active,” said tournament pro Bill Ortiz, of Dodgeville, Wisc. He was the In-Fisherman/Professional Walleye Trail angler of the year in 2003 and has been competing for 10 years, though he is not entered in the Wal-Mart field here.
Ortiz, who came to western Lake Erie to conduct a photo shoot for his sponsors, said he expects Wal-Mart pros to try trolling plastic crankbaits and worm harnesses with spinner blades. Pros in the heat of a competition typically are as closed-mouth as poker players.
This time of year, Ortiz said, “When the big fish come to feed, they re in the top 10 feet. They go to where the warm water is - that s where they are most active.”
Ortiz uses a snap-on weight system when he runs shallow-diving crankbaits, adjusting the weights so the lures run in the strike zone of suspended fish. He also notes: “Most of the time I m catching fish, I m not marking [them]. I m fishing for ghost fish.”
He explained that the passage of a boat will move fish. “They scatter from the electronics.” Side-planers move the lures out and away from the noise and, it is hoped, to where the fish have moved.
“Last year I had a 131/2-pounder and it wasn t two feet from the surface.” For big spring Erie walleye, Ortiz usually prefers to patrol in open water between Green Island and C-Can. He prefers not to fish east of Kelleys because a wind change to northeast too easily can push cold central basin water into the area and shut off fish activity. This spring, too, Ontario and Michigan waters temporarily are closed to walleye fishing because of new conservation regulations.
In addition to using shallow and deep-diving crankbaits, Ortiz stays versatile. He is not averse to using worm harnesses with spinners, usually using a snap-weight system to put the harnesses down near bottom. Some anglers using bottom-bouncer rigs to keep their harnesses down; the key is keeping the harnesses down.
The Wisconsin pro often will find himself starting a spring Lake Erie trolling day with worm harnesses - “early in the morning before they come up.” He watches the weather and his electronics, however, and switches to plastic when the fish start to suspend.
So much for the basics of spring Erie trolling tactics. The chapter and verse of the 2004 tournament success story will not be read aloud until the final fish is weighed Saturday. Then the winning pro this time around will tell all. Or almost all.
First Published April 30, 2004, 12:55 p.m.
