Went to find a few more wallies for the freezer for probably my last kayak weekend.
Got treated to some big boi action!
As I'd come to know where the little guys were holding each time I went, I headed in the general direction in the morning, thinking I'd get a few quick and maybe go home early.
This plan didn't go well as they were not willing to eat much, if at all. I could only entice the dinks to bite, after trying a bunch of lures.
As time went on, clouds came in and wind picked up, the action was on. I very quickly caught as many edible sized ones as I wanted, cycling through the bigger ones on my stringer.
Then it happened. As I was slowly reeling up another 12"er as not to give it barotrauma, I noticed a BIG mark following it up
No sooner than my noticing, the Goliath sized mark shot up and enveloped the dink I was trying to practice C&R on. The line tightened, rod tip curled down and drag started ripping. It took me a couple of seconds to register that my prey became another's!
For a few minutes I fought this beast. The unrelenting tips downward was reminiscent of a big catfish, but I would soon learn from the big gashes on the unlucky live bait that it was a toothy predator. Whether it was a giant pike or walleye, I won't find out as unfortunately I was not able to bring the marauding beast to the net before it finally let go just below visibility from surface.
Before I was given the chance to feel dejected, I saw the giant still hovering around the area, and another nearby. I quickly switched over to the graph shad and dropped it to the depths.
The giant near the bottom would only slowly follow, but the second mark was more enthused and gave chase, eventually sucking down the lure. She came out at 23"!
Clearly this was not the monster that would happily guzzle down a 12" walleye, so I kept searching around. I spotted quite a few large marks stalking the basin where thousands of small eyes held.
As I cruised around catching smaller wallies for fun, I spotted a couple of big marks far away suspending mid depth, and made a precision long cast. It was dead on. Slowly I watched the shad spiral down to the depth of my target, and thumbed the spool to slow the approach.
Immediately 1 of the marks showed some interest. Unlike a lake trout, bass or pike that would torpedo into the prey for the kill, this beast stalked the shad, slowly at first, then ever so slowly sped up. Suspense killed me as I felt I was doing something wrong by not getting a strike as it followed nearly up to the boat.
My patience and experience paid off as I kept the shad with just enough distance and speed, and the beast moved past interest, and into committing. As the line went tight I could immediately feel this was a much more substantial opponent, and a more similar to my initial encounter. After a decent fight, I got her into my net, and she came out to be about 28"!
While I won't ever know how big the one that got away was, I believe it was even bigger, however due to the way it was "hooked", there's no good comparison. It could have even been massive pike.
I think this is the last walleye kayak trip of this year, and what a banger to end it on, with a near trophy PB in the short time I've spent targetting them!
