Catfishing for Walleyes (Part 2)

[hanson]

Sometimes I have to shake my head in disbelief to some of the things you see and experience on the water. But this isn't one of them. I have seen and heard of so many trophy size walleyes being accidentally caught while catfishing that you can almost (I said almost) put a pattern to them.

Earlier in the year, I witnessed this while fishing with "I Da Man" Briank. In fact, I landed a pretty nice one myself down on Pool 3 of the Mississippi, a healthy 28" walleye. I can't remember if I caught that one on cut sucker or a live bullhead but it was definitely caught with catfishing tactics.

The latest incident of the "Green Hornet" striking again was yesterday morning, and the victim was my tourny partner "CatManLee". We were on day 2 of the Cat's Incredible Tournament in Grand Forks/East Grand Forks on the Red River when one of CatManLee's circle hook rods starts dipping towards the water. It was a good hook up and he fought the fish to the boat. We knew it was a decent fish, not a 20lb cat but a decent fish. It pulled down under the boat and we still hadn't seen the fish yet when it finally surfaced. I can still picture that big toothy mouth and giant eyes popping out of the water and yelling "Son of a b*tch, its a Walleye!".

Anyway, congrats to CatManLee on one heck of a trophy! This one measured 29" long and was safely released after a couple photos. This fish was worth taking a small break from the tourny to get a couple photos.

[Team Otter]

Very nice.

How did the tourney go?

[Andrew Erickson]

now thats a big fish!nice job