WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
September 4, 2008

It sure has been a crazy last few weeks. With the tournament fishing and my Web site being down, I have had a few weeks where I haven't been able to report. Before getting to the latest report, I thought I would fill all of you in in my recent win in the Angler Young Angler tournament that was held a few weeks ago. I had this opportunity to fish with my 6-year-old daughter and a family friend, 9-year-old Tyler Danielson, what a great time and best yet we won and won big. Here are how things went for us:

The trip started on Thursday for us as we took the 5-hour trek north to Kenora. The AYA International Championship was 19 teams fishing for one prize which was a two-tiered trip for six starting at an exclusive trip to Wilderness North lake in Thunder Bay, Ontario and from there the winner would head to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The value of trip was reported at $50,000.00. So with a huge opportunity on the line and the kids full of excitement, the 19 teams hit the water with winning clearly on top of their mind, including us! My daughter Jordyn was extremely excited as she kept reminding me that she wanted us to win because she wanted to go to Disney.

As the anglers pushed away from the docks Saturday morning, Lund and Mercury provided each of the 19 teams with 1825 Lund Rebels with a 90-horse, 4-stroke Mercury. The boats were looking professional as Gemini sports marketing had professional wrapped each boat, making the field equal from the look to the equipment. With a 45-minute TV shoot and boat parade, we made our way down the lake and through what was called the Devils pass, (small narrow part of the lake filled with islands and rocks.) Once getting through the Devils pass, it was now time to see what team could put together a winning bag of fish. Each team could only weigh its three largest walleyes.

The tournament hours again would be equal and we started fishing around 9:30 a.m. and we had to be back to this starting point no later than 3:30 pm. Our first stop would find three quick ones ranging from 18-20 inches. We were fishing spinners on 2 oz. bottom bouncers tipped with crawlers at 1.5 to 1.8 MPH. We then made a run to the West to find a bunch of 20-24 inch walleyes sitting actively in some current between two long islands. With a very good bite, we would find that the camera guy would stay with us for the remainder of the day as the feeling of us winning had started early amongst us and the others. So now about 1 to 1 ˝ hours into the day and three decent fish in the boat, we headed to the big fish area that we had located on Friday prefishing.

With the first pass, Tyler would find a 25-incher, that would upgrade the 20-incher in the livewell. On the very next pass I caught another 25-incher. Now we had two 25” walleyes and a 24”. About 10-15 minutes would pass before I would find one of the two gigantic walleyes that we would bring to the scale. It was a very-healthy 30-inch walleye. Then about 3-4 minutes later, Tyler would find another 30-incher. Tyler did everything perfect and I was very proud of him as this was his largest walleye to date and no better time than now as the trip to Disney was on the line and looking to be ours. So with the pure adrenalin running through us and the nerves finally settling down after putting those two huge walleyes in the boat, we were looking for maybe one more 30-incher. Sure enough, another bite in the exact same way and I set the hook to have another huge walleye come to the boat, but at the last second the fish turned and as it turned it broke my line. Our chance to bring three 30” walleyes to the scale quickly vanished. So now pushing 1:30 pm with only 2 hours to go, the excitement was building for us and the mid-day heat was as well. We would end the tournament fishing with two 30” walleyes and a 25” walleye.

So as we headed back to the dock, we were unsure of how we would end up until finally our time had come to hit the stage. 16 teams had already weighed their fish. With us and two others remaining, we would see the PWT Angler Tom Backer and his team also waiting to weigh. Our three fish topped the 21.80 mark. With my wife and the Danielson’s sitting in the front row, we all were nervous to see what the final team would weigh and as Tom Backer and his team approached the scale, my nerves were shaking, but Backer and his team from Devils lake would only weigh 17.10 lbs, making us the International AYA Champions. The entire event will be on numerous TV channels in the upcoming months and I will certainly update my website and this column as the programs start to air.

The AYA (angler young angler) tournament is truly about getting young kids involved in fishing and this event was and is the most impressive event that I have been apart of. The kids feel like they are professionals from start to finish and if you’re looking to do something with your kids, get involved with the AYA program. We will be hosting another AYA tournament again next season on Lake Pokegama and the winner of this event will get the invite to next years trip to Kenora for the Championship.

Pictures from the AYA Tournament:

The winning team shows their excitement	Sean brings the winning fish to the scale

Weekly Newsletter:

Heavy South winds and a switch to calmer and cooler Northwest winds followed by cool evenings and dropping water temperatures means only one thing to many anglers here in the Northland, Fall fishing.

With the leaves getting more and more color in them nearly by the hour right now and birds flocking consistently, many area lakes are also showing the signs of Fall fishing. The deep water structure is showing much less sign of fish activity and those primary points and shallow water hot spots are now gaining more activity nearly by the hour.

Certainly a pattern is developing, and note that this is not the case on all lakes, but most of the walleye water in our area that has this seasonal movement is starting to take place and I would expect to see a large shallow water show in the next few days.

With the early season Fall movement to the shallows, we can use a variety of techniques to trigger those walleyes into biting and for me it consists of three. The Salmo Hornets, the hammered-silver #3 Colorado spinner tipped with a crawler, and those ever-so-liked minnows tipped on a Lindy MAXGAP jig.

For the #4 Salmo hornets, we have found over the last couple of weeks to be again the top producer on most days. Here the hot perch and the blue dace are finding most walleyes. We continue to find the 40-60 feet of line trolled at 2.0 mph in that 6-8 feet of water to be the most productive. On days where the fish just seem to pass on the Salmo Hornets we are running #3 Colorado hammered silver spinners tipped with a crawlers at or near the 1.5 mph mark. When running the spinner we have found that a 2 hook harness over a three hook seems to be preferred. We have found the consistent bite in the 7-9 feet of water with the spinners. We are running the spinners behind a 2 oz. bottom bouncer while only needing to let out 15-18 feet of line. Key to the spinners is making sure the bouncer is running about one foot off the bottom.

On days where the spinners and the cranks slow, the jigs and minnows are picking up where the cranks and spinners left off. As the water temperatures start to drop, look again this season for those jigs and minnows to take over as the preferred presentation. I truly feel that most of the month of September we will see a very consistent shallow water hornet and spinner bite.

The Pokegama lake night bite has been fairly inconsistent most of the summer for most including myself, but over the last week with the water temperatures starting to drop, we have seen more consistency. With the September full moon coming on the 15th, look for a much better bite than what this summer has shown. I would expect that we should have a very solid October full moon period unless mother nature drops some serious cold weather upon us.

If you're thinking about doing some fall fishing, I do have some open dates, please give me a call or email and lets see if we can make something work.

See you on the water in a LUND boat,

Sean Colter
member of NMGL
seancolter@seancolter.com