Big walleye fishing in cold water

While most have stored their boats away for the winter by late November, a few die hard fishermen remain on the water right up until it freezes. And rightly so, as some good trophy fishing can be had by those dedicated enough to put up with the miserable weather, and often lethargic fish.

Mark Currie is one of those dedicated die hard anglers, and I had the luck to get out and chase some late season walleye with him. Though I knew it was going to be a cold day, the weather threw us a surprise, we got our first few centimeters of snow of the season that morning. This is what the boat ramp looked like when I arrived.

It was still snowing when we launched, and for the first hour or so of our outing. To make matters worse, there was an East wind blowing, which ended up cancelling any plans to drift fish for walleye, so we were forced to cast for them instead. Casting in subfreezing temps leads to heavy ice buildup on the rod guides, which impedes casting, and eventually then leads to line damage by fraying. Not to mention cold fingers having to break off the ice after every few casts.

The fish were there, but extremely non cooperative. An arriving cold front often puts them into a negative moods this time of year, and we had to slow our presentation down to a standstill in order to coax any of them into biting.

Knowing that the fish were there, we persevered, despite the combination of these negative conditions. It took a few hours, but we finally managed to hook some big walleyes:

For those of you crazy enough to give late season / cold water trophy walleye fishing a try, I highly recommend contacting Mark, as he fishes right up until first ice, and is one of the best out there when it comes to big walleye.

Mark can be contacted by clicking: http://freshwaterphil.com/contactmark.cfm