Some anglers get intimidated by hot weather and their ability to catch fish during the dog days of summer. As it turns out, some of the best angling for walleye occurs during the heat of the summer. Action might be better early or later in the day, but if the wind blows, action can be brisk all day long. Last month I got a call from friend Boyd Holmen about fishing a small walleye tournament on Tobin Lake. Seems he needed a last minute replacement in his boat. I don’t really fish tournaments anymore, haven’t for years but since all I had to do was show up, I decided to go. What really convinced me though, was another chance to catch those fat and sassy Tobin Lake walleye. Boyd told me the fishing had been great all spring and summer and judging by the pictures he kept sending me, this was no fish story. All those stories were accurate as over the two days of the event Boyd and I caught a bunch of really nice fish. With only a small number of boats, it was just a fun time. We found the majority of the fish on the secondary break line and by running bottom bouncers and spinners through the tree limbs we consistently caught fish. On the second day, when things slowed a bit we headed out to the big lake to see if we could find some active fish. Things were slow until some cloud cover moved in and the wind picked up a bit. We also started watching the cormorants, pelicans and seagulls gorging themselves on ciscoes.
Boyd’s electronics were black from the number of bait fish down there. Tough competition for our spinners and worms so we switched over to crankbaits.
Unfortunately we could only hook into pike using this pattern. We decided we would look around and try and find some fish marks closer to the bottom, under these fish. As we headed up on a big mud/sand flat bingo. Boyd’s electronics were marking one fish after another in 25 to 30 feet of water. We started slowly trolling the flat with great success and we had the spot all to our lonesome which made it even more enjoyable. Thanks Boyd for a great time and to the Nipawin Hawks hockey team for such a fun event.
