Jim K: Potholes - 11/2

Following Greg’s lead from October 30th, I too ventured to Potholes for my 2nd ever fishing opportunity.  My first Potholes experience was limited to the Lind Coulee arm due to wind, so I never really did experience the reservoir.  After weeks of overcast weather and exceptional fishing reports, our day turned out to be extremely sunny… a day sandwiched between a dreary Saturday, and a forecasted cloudy Monday.  We got on the lake at 9:45AM, and immediately hooked up with a 20” walleye and two perch.  There were many boats on the water, but only one next to us.  That fisherman caught two very nice walleyes in the same 20 minutes.  Then the fishing died… died for everyone!  We didn’t see another walleye landed the rest of the day, despite fishing some very crowded conditions.  We only witnessed a few perch caught.  It wasn’t until the last hour of the day that we again picked up a few fish, finishing our day with three walleye and five very large perch.  Color didn’t matter all day long.

We began fishing deeper edges between 20-30’ where we caught our first fish.  We were pulling bottom bouncers at the time with worm harness.  With three different colors.  My fishing partner had a nice fish on, but failed to land it.  Including that fish, all three colors produced before the lake became a desert.  We departed our deeper water and searched from 8’ to 20’ in the flooded sand dunes just at the mouth of Crab Creek along with about 30 other boats.  Like I said earlier, no caught fish.  We tried targeting fish isolated with electronics with blade baits, clacking raps, and jig/grub combinations.  All met without success.  We then motored up to the smaller portion of Crab Creek and pulled bottom bouncers, again with no luck.   Then We tried the North shoreline leading into Lind Coulee area with a nice gravely / stone bottom… again no luck.  Tried an area across the lake near the island.. no luck.  Ended up heading back to the edge of the sand dunes and began a VERY slow vertical jig / grub presentation… same presentation I used last winter during cold water conditions.  That worked… the feel of the bites were almost nonexistent… they would barely pull your rod tip down a little bit, and would be quickly gone if you hesitated at all on a hook set.  I felt like if we had stuck it out all day long with this presentation, we may have had a few more fish in the boat. That would have been a move that would have required a lot of confidence, but in retrospect would have made a lot of sense given the sudden shut down of a fishery after weeks of exceptional reports.  Boat control was very critical… you needed to be moving 0.1 to 0.2 mph max, or holding stationary and have a vertical line presentation… otherwise your jig seemed to bee moving too much to trigger the lethargic fish.  Reaction baits fished at same “productive” period at end of the day failed to bring any bites… another clue to the need for a VERY slow post-front slow presentation.  Our walleye were 20”, 18” and 15”.  Largest perch wasn’t measured, but I guess to be about 12”.  Guys were slaying the crappie at the dock under the lights when we trailered the boat at the end of the day.