Twin Cities Walleyes Unlimited - Monthly Newsletter |
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Thankful
Greetings Club friends! As we celebrate Thanksgiving, it is time to think about what we are thankful for. I’m thankful for my family and friends, and I am also thankful to be part of a great club like Twin Cities Walleyes. A big thank you to our club members and sponsors. Your support helps us do the things we do – Connect, Educate and Give back to our community.
We had a great turn out for our November meeting with guest speaker Randin Olson. It was interesting to hear how Randin targeted walleyes in shallow water and if they weren’t there, than he would move up even shallower. He also challenged us to be different, not only to fish shallow but also to fish were other people are not fishing.
I’m excited for our December club meeting with our good friend Tony Roach. Tony does a great job of educating on how to catch more walleyes through the ice. I can’t wait to hear what he has to share with us. I’m also excited to announce our 3rd annual Ice Fishing Camp with Tony as our host and guide. This year’s event will be on Saturday, January 15th. Space is limited, so make sure you sign up early.
I look forward to seeing you all at our December meeting and don’t forget to bring a friend!
Dale Meinders
President - Twin Cities Walleyes Unlimited
Connect | Educate | Give
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December Speaker
Tony Roach
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Location: Knights of Columbus
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Annual Club Ice fishing Camp is scheduled with Tony Roach on Lake Mille Lacs. Save the date, Saturday January 15, 2022. Click on the link below for details and to register
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Membership has
it's advantages
You can find out more information about Twin Cities Walleyes Unlimited and our Events by going to our website and on Facebook
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Club Meeting Thursday December 2, 2021 |
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Dear Club Members,
TCWU would like to welcome you to talk fishing with fishing guide, tournament angler, fishing educator, TCWU Club sponsor and friend. Tony Roach. We are excited that you all can personally connect with a such skilled Minnesota angler and to learn from a lifetime of fishing experience. Tony will share a ton of meaningful pro-tips to improve our fishing skills and put more fish in the net!
Tony hosts and guides our club Ice Fishing Camp on Lake Mille Lacs each of the past 2 years and has us book again on Saturday January 15th, 2022.
To learn more about this Club fishing event, click on the group picture below.
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About Tony,
Tony Roach is a fishing guide, tournament angler, and outdoor communicator, spending close to 300 days on the open water and ice annually. Tony’s knowledge of the hottest fisheries and angling techniques are featured in regional and national print and broadcast, including In-Fisherman, Midwest Outdoors, Game and Fish, Great Lakes Angler and many more.
Tony owns Roach's Guide Service, which is based out of the Mille Lacs Lake area. If you are looking for a great day on the water check out his web page by clicking on the link below. Tony and team will put you on good fishing, educate you on the latest fishing trends, techniques, baits and share their pro-tips!
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Check out our club sponsors
for your Holiday gifts
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Scheels is geared up for the Cold Weather hard water fishing season and is loaded up on all the outdoor gear you need. Make sure to get a head start on the holiday rush to get what you need before it gets picked over!
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Simms Tech. provides the ULTIMATE WARMTH WITHOUT THE WEIGHT
Featuring PrimaLoft® Insulation for warmth without weight and water-shedding tech to match those who love the hard-core outdoors
You’ll laugh in the face of subzero temperatures and wind-hurled snow armed with Simms ice fishing apparel, which includes everything from fleece base layers, thermal socks, and PrimaLoft®-packed gloves to insulated ice fishing bibs and jackets and guide-caliber boots rated to 40 below. Extend your angling season and embrace the deep freeze with SIMMS ice fishing clothes: keeping you warm and toasty in the very teeth of winter.
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Club Members are offered an awesome 15% discount. Featured products include:
- The Drotto Latch, catch and release boat latch that makes loading and unloading a breeze. These are awesome are highly recommended by several of our club members
- Ice Fishing Rods
- ATV Accessories - featuring Eagle Plows
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Auger Covers - They are the exclusive manufacturer of snap on blade protectors for Strikemaster, Jiffy, ION, Eskimo, K-Drill, NilsUSA, Clam augers. All Cold Snap Covers have a LIFETIME Guarantee.
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See all of our Club Discounts on our Members only Facebook page:
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Welcome to new club sponsor Aqua View |
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A special welcome to Aqua View as a new club sponsor!
They are offering a 30% discount on all online purchases for Cameras and accessories.
See all of our Club Discounts on our Members only Facebook page:
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What you need to know about fishing Lake Minnetonka
Lake Minnetonka is a popular fishing destination year round due to its close proximity to the Minneapolis area and great fish stocks. Lake Minnetonka is currently the 9th largest lake in Minnesota with a surface area of 14,528 acres and a max depth of 113 feet in Crystal Bay. This lake is the perfect destination for largemouth bass. The predominant methods are flipping jigs beneath docks, casting topwaters in and around lily pads and working the edges of weedlines with spinners or crankbaits. Buzz baits also work great for largemouth bass. Walleyes are another prized game fish on Lake Minnetonka. Lindy rigs, jigs with a swimbait or minnow and deep running crankbaits are the perfect pick when targeting these walleye. Minnetonka walleyes can be found on deep water rock structures and mid lake humps. Looking for bait balls can increase your chances of success. If you're looking for large, hard fighting northern and Muskie, Minnetonka is a great destination. Using Bucktails and top water lures by sunken trees and beaver dams is the go-to for pulling these fish into the boat.
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Sign up for the Omnia Premium Plan, which is available at registration and receive 10% back on all purchases and unlimited free shipping.
Earn free tackle at Omnia for filling out fishing reports
Fishing reports filed on specific lakes and include tackle suggestions (never locations) earn you tackle credits in your Omnia account when people make purchases based on these fishing reports. We're also linking the fishing reports to product pages so you can see what colors and sizes are being used on specific lakes you fish or lakes in your area. It's a great new feature to help anglers discover new tackle, sort through what's best for them, and techniques on the lakes they fish and even discover new lakes when looking at products.
Need more information:
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Mille Lacs, Upper Red lake winter season walleye regulations announced
Ice anglers on Mille Lacs and Upper Red lakes can harvest walleye on both lakes this winter season.
A four-walleye bag limit, with only one walleye longer than 17 inches allowed, went into effect on Upper Red Lake on Monday, Nov. 1.
Effective Wednesday, Dec. 1, through Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022, winter anglers on Mille Lacs may keep one walleye between 21-23 inches or one fish longer than 28 inches.
The new regulation on Upper Red increases the possession limit from the three-fish limit that was in place during the 2020-2021 winter season and 2021 open water season, when mature walleye were lower in abundance.
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With a deadly open-water season nearly in the rearview mirror, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reminds everyone that lakes and ponds throughout the state have started to freeze – and that where ice hasn’t formed, the water is dangerously cold. It’s up to all people to choose to stay safe around the water or ice, according to the DNR.
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DNR hunting and fishing skills webinars continue this winter
Registration open for new sessions of the Minnesota Outdoor Skills and Stewardship Series
Anyone interested in hunting, fishing and the outdoors can learn about activities like ice fishing, darkhouse spearing, winter camping, tying flies for fly fishing, learning to hunt as an adult, and high school clay target shooting by joining webinars hosted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
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TCWU Pro-tip of the Month
Featuring Randin Olson
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November guest speaker Randin Olson shares this “Pro Tip of the Month“
with Club President Dale Meinders. Thanks for the great meeting Josh!
Click on the photo below to hear what Randin shared
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Guest Speaker Re-cap
Featuring Randin Olson
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TCWU hosted Ottertail Lakes area guide, tournament angler and educator Randin Olson at our November Club Meeting. We are truly grateful that he could make the drive down to join us at our club meeting. It was a cool experience to personally connect with a truly innovative angler who challenged us to try new techniques. He is a multi-species angler that loved fishing Muskies most of all, before becoming a shallow Water Walleye Wizard.
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The Unconventional Walleye Angler
Randin's father was a lindy rigger and they fished on the outside of the weed lines because that’s how it was done. It was not fast enough action for Randin. He commented that he is "not slow angler and hates traditional bait rig fishing," which is what drove him into a becoming a multi-species angler.
His true passion before becoming a shallow water Walleye Wizard was fishing Muskies. He actually blended his Muskie techniques into a way to catch shallow water Walleyes. He commented "They are not the typical finicky fish we think they are."
The locals call him the unconventional walleye angler because he uses chatter baits, spinner baits, surface baits, Tokyo and ned rigs to name a few. They are also referring to how he fishes walleyes in the shallows. Randin shared his pro-tips on how to consistently catch walleyes in 10 feet or less, which we have
re-caped below for those of you who missed the meeting.
Shallow Water Walleyes
Randin is true believer that fish will find a home range and they will stay there all summer. He has been catching walleyes in the shallows since opening day. All the top guys on the NWT at Ottertail caught their fish in 10 feet or less. He said that "Its intimidating to look over the side of the boat to see bottom and then see Walleyes scampering in the shallows. Then especially intimidating trying to catch them.
They trick on locating is you have to have something there, and it can be something subtle. Many of his spots don’t appear to have any structure. Morning and evening everyone fishes the weed line and then they move deeper during the day. Randin is finding fish in the opposite direction, by moving shallow.
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Randin is finding that fish are moving shallow, here are some location tips
- Sight fishing with your trolling motor. You are looking for fish and structures that hold fish.
- Find structure, food, large or small weed patches
- He has been finding bait in shallow in areas where there is mossy weed growth on the rocks, docks and sand grass
- Sand Structures, troughs, humps, constantly moving with wind and waves
- You cover more water
- Look very shallow, he has been catching them in 6 feet or less all summer
- This technique works better in the day and slows down around the primetime periods
- The majority of fish are in the community spots but you will catch less fish there, challenge yourself to branch out and find your own spot. You will catch all of those fish.
- Small weed beds of sparse sand grass hold fish
- In spring find new growth weed beds in the shallows they hold fish
- Does fish on the traditional weed edges, especially during prime time.
How to catch them
- First of all, Walleye are an optimistic fish, they have to eat
- Randin’s success is fueled by a passion of trying different presentations
- Jig and a minnow works but you get a lot of hang ups
- Use Jerk baits/Stick baits, Rip Stops with a run stop run stop, run stop, etc… presentation to trigger them to bite
- Try Planner Boards at 3-5 mph with shallow baits, 2 feet of line below the board
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Likes the Square bill crank baits and loves deep divers on planer boards. The trick is to have the lip of the crank bouncing off the bottom to stir things up and turn on the fish. Likes the baits that run 5 to 10 feet deep, they work for some reason
- Big fat plastics 5-7 inch with one ounce weights again at 3 - 5 mph
- Randin called out an interesting observation. Walleyes can’t see as far in the shallows as they can when they are deep and because of that they don’t spook right away. He has observe them actually turn and look.
- When the fish aren’t biting we tend to go slower, slower and slower. Try the opposite go faster, faster and faster. You will cover more water as well and attract more aggressive fish.
- Fish may be a little spooky in spring but once the skiers and pleasure boaters startup they become less spooky
- Zeebs are taking over the prime spots of rock beds and change the way he fishes. He commented that the walleyes are running the outside edges and loop around and around until they get full.
Wind is a tricky thing and plays an impact on where to fish
- Windblown structures, shorelines, weed beds are areas to key on and Randin says 2 ½ foot waves really turn on the bite in these areas. No one wants to fish works best, the wind no one wants to be in.
- A steady wind for 2 to 3 days of 5 to 15 pushes the bait to the back side of structures such as rock piles, Sand humps and weed beds. Bait get be pushed to shore If its shoreline it pushed
- Randin does better fishing down the side of the structure. Fish stage up on the side along the transition line before they move up on top
How much line do you feed out when speed trolling behind the boat? It varies depending the day
- 20 feet, 30 feet max of 50 feet
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Run your lures as close to the boat as possible
- Fish the boat wash, literally four feet behind the boat
- Rod tip in the water with four feet of line with a jerk bait
- Walleyes will push out away from the boat but not necessarily because they are scared, they just need to get out of the way
Ice fishing – do you fish shallow?
- Yes, how many walleyes do you see spearing? A lot
- Get out early, drill your holes and let them rest. Shallow water walleyes will spook Ice fishing. Try using tip-ups to avoid spooking the fish
- If you want to jig, be still. Sound travels through water and they will hear you, be stealthy.
Equipment
- Line = 10 lb braid with a 10 lb mono/fluorocarbon leader
- Uses side scan a lot allows him to find structure, the best part of the structure and fish movements
- Lure color doesn’t matter as putting bait out at the right spot at the right time. You are seeking out and triggering aggressive fish to bite
- Whippy Rods, braid, with mono leader. You don’t need an expensive set up.
- When you are in a pinch a bottom bouncer will always catch fish on the weed line
Take away – Randin challenges us to try something different
- Waypoints can help you find fish but also can keep you from catching them. Structures, weeds, Invasive species can all turn those past favorite spots into spots with no fish. Don’t count on your waypoints they represent fish memories not necessarily future success.
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Thank you Randin for taking the time to join us with your busy schedule. We appreciate the fishing tips on how to fish unconventional to catch Walleyes in the shallows. Thanks for answering our club member questions, your techniques will be exciting to try next summer, we can’t wait!
Continued success to you and enjoy the upcoming hard water fishing.
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Special Thanks to our Club Sponsors |
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TC Walleyes Unlimited, Inc.
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4608 Tower St.
Edina, MN 55424
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