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| The Delavau brothers hold some Red River green! |
A southeast was blowing some warmer air into southern Manitoba on Monday. Despite rain in the forecast I had convinced friends Jeff and Randy Delavau to partake in the greenback walleye run on the mighty Red River. Randy had not fished since he was a youngster and Jeff not for a couple of years. As I dressed them in two floater coats to protect against the weather we headed up river from Selkirk to the “Miracle Mile”.
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| Use the double stack |
Anchoring the boat in 12 feet of water along the main river channel we dropped our jigs down into the moderate current. I had on a pink and white glow ¼ ounce jig tipped a 3 inch Berkley finesse minnow along with a salted shiner, while Jeff had on a chartreuse jig and Randy an orange one. Jeff caught the first three fish, all small saugers. Randy meantime was feeding the saugers a few of those shiners as he got used the equipment. I had the advantage this day since I had been out on the Red three times previous to fine tune my jigging technique. This day it paid off in spades. Half an hour in, I had a huge smack from an extremely large walleye. Head shaking in the current, it took me a while to finally coax this brute up beside the boat. Jeff hadn’t netted a fish for a few years but did a great job of easing him into the bottom of the mesh. What a way to start the day, a beautiful 29 incher, fat, healthy and green.
For the next five hours we landed another seven walleye that were over 26 inches, fish that have made this river legendary. While Jeff was struggling, Randy finally smacked a 28 incher after changing over to a pink jig, rigged the same way I did, with a 3 inch Berkley finesse minnow and salted shiner.
Some anglers are still catching some real nice walleye trolling Doc Reids. While the federal government started opening the locks on Monday, the fish are recovering and still out there.
Still plenty of time to get out and enjoy this special fishing on the Red River.
