Wissota Wonders: Breaking out of a slump on a beautiful Wissota day

Last modified: Saturday, August 30, 2008 8:06 PM CDT

Wissota Wonders: Breaking out of a slump on a beautiful Wissota day

By MARK GUNDERMAN
mark.gunderman@lee.net

I’ve said this before just describing the richness of an experience, but it really was a perfect day on Wissota last Monday. I had the day off, one of the remaining vacation days I needed to use, and was blessed with mild upper-70s temperatures, low humidity and a gentle breeze.

Judi and I had returned early that afternoon from an overnight getaway, and with nothing on the schedule, I figured I might as well head out.

There’s something about launching the boat and pulling away from the dock that’s liberating. My troubles are back there, in the whole shoreside world, I think. I’m going t his way, I say to myself as I head out onto the open water.

I didn’t expect to catch much.

Fishermen have this undeserved image as exaggerators or outright liars. I, for one, have never so much as stretched. . . Oh, never mind. A tinge of conscience holds me back.

But truth be told I had been in something of a slump lately. I know there are many fishermen out there who will say it never happens to them, but it happens to me.

One of the reasons my catch count is down is that I am focusing this year on expanding my skills and exploring new spots. Fishermen can easily get into the habit of trying the same patterns in the same spots, even when they’re not producing. I wanted to become more proficient at new patterns and find some new spots, figuring in the long run I will have more success, but as I go through a learning process success may fall off.

I stuck with it, and feel good about how I’ve progressed. Still, lately the results hadn’t matched the hours on the lake and my patience was growing thin.

I went out one evening intending to muskie fish around Mermaid Island when Tom, my neighbor from Milwaukee up for a week came in on his pontoon and commented that people were catching walleyes around the island. I didn’t come fully prepared for walleye fishing, but I switched strategies and tried some artificial minnows made from Berkeley’s Gulp! that I’m fond of, but without success. People around me, using minnows, I believe, were catching fish, but not me.

A few days later I got some minnows and headed out in a light rain and nearly had the lake to myself. Walleyes bite well at dusk and at night in the rain, supposedly. Still, I was shut out except for a couple of nice crappies.

And so the slump continued.

I didn’t expect things to get much better by fishing in the middle of a Monday afternoon. My new friend Mark, who live a couple of houses down from Hunt’s Pay Beach, was out with his girls in the pontoon and told me he had been doing well lately, which didn’t make me feel any better about my slump.

For this trip, though, I decided I didn’t want to work hard at it, and gave myself permission to fall into an old familiar pattern of a live crawler on a Carolina rig. I went around bouncing it off ledges and down to the bottom in familiar places, eventually ending up on Paint Creek, where I used to catch most of my big walleyes before it started to dry up on me about three years ago.

I caught a nice walleye, measuring 17 inches, inside the slot, and obediently (I’m a big slot limit fan) released it.

Then about halfway up to first bend I had a big one hit right next to the rock face. I set the hook and had it on for less than five seconds, but enough to tell it was a nice fish, whatever it was. I knew better than to toss the same crawler back there hoping it would take it again, on account of that NEVER works. But next to me I had my other medium action rigged up with a Gulp! twister in chartreuse, which Jim Clark at the Sheriff’s office had told me was working for walleye at his spots, bounced big off the bottom.

I grabbed that rod and bounced the twister against the rock face, and the big fish took it almost immediately.

It was a big fish I could tell in the short fight. It was a short cast from the front to the rear of the boat and it stayed down as I brought it along side, then dove under the boat. I brought it back up and it broke the surface. It was a walleye, well over the upper 18 inches on the slot limit. It might have made 25 inches.

I’ll never know. It threw the hook when it rolled at the surface, leaving me looking in vain for a third rod rigged with something that would fool it again.

I went on to catch a 16-incher, again in the slot limit, and a few more fish followed, but not much to brag about in terms of size.

Was it the end of my slump? I don’t know yet, but it was one of the most beautiful late summer days we’re likely to have, and a great afternoon on Wissota.