Walleye Tournament
by
Bill Prendagast

Here is the story of how Ed Philpot and I won the 2006 Clyde's Walleye Fishing Tournament on the St. Croix. But first, let me tell you all something straight off the bat, from the horse's mouth, and please keep this confidential: I don't know anything about fishing. I've been fishing for more than fifteen years now, and I still don't know one end of a bass from the other. I can't tell a smallmouth from a largemouth, unless they produce a photo i.d. on the spot.

The only reason I was in the boat at all was that Ed's son had to drop out at the last minute. I got a slightly frantic call from Ed the day before the contest, asking me to take his son's place as his partner for the two-day weekend event. Since Uma Thurman had cancelled out on me that weekend, what could I say but yes. I'm glad I did, because the first-place prize money came to $2000.

But as far my contribution goes, let's just say that Ed could have partnered up for the tournament with a cigar-store wooden Native American for the trip and brought in just as many walleye. It was his knowledge of angling and the particular water to be fished that enabled us to defeat 44 competitors over two days. Bear in mind that Ed's won or placed in many fishing tournaments around here over the years, and his experience paid off again this summer. When we began, I wanted to win, I wasn't certain we'd win-but one thing I was sure of: with Ed's experience and good weather, we'd finish respectably.

The tournament fishing was limited to the St. Croix River and Pool 3 of the Mississippi. Ed hadn't done more than two hours of pre-fishing on the Tuesday prior to the contest, but he'd used that time to line up four likely sweet spots. All of these had potential, but one in particular ("Two Fingers" on the St. Croix) had produced a serious lunker. Finding a spot with big fish is important in tournament fishing because putting a couple of these in the boat early in the day can take some of the pressure off and leave you with a little time to experiment--or to take a chance on a different spot if things start to quiet down.

DAY ONE
Friday, June was the first morning of the tournament. The weather was cool and clear early in the day; not a cloud in the sky and the water temperature was a warm 78 degrees. There were 23 boats ready to take off, each boat carrying two anglers. The contest officials had divided the boats into two groups or flights. Flight One would leave at 7 a.m. and had to return by 3 p.m. Flight Two departed at 7:15 and had to be back by 3:15.

Ed and I had drawn spot number five in the first flight of boats to leave the marina. I will spare you the prose poems about how lovely the St. Croix looks on a cool June morning, but if you haven't seen it, you really should. The water on the river was quiet that first morning, almost glassy, but it was as blue as the Caribbean and as dark as the Atlantic. The tree line on the shore was pale emerald with deep shadows, and the sun was coming up red and gold. This seemed to put Ed in mind of the desert scenes from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" (a film which he can quote from extensively, over the sound of the motor.)

We went straight for "Two Fingers," the spot that had produced that lunker for Ed during Tuesday pre-fishing. Ed's strategy was to troll-using the outboard motor (not the electric) to glide back and forth over a particular underwater feature of the river until one of the creatures on the bottom took a chance and bit. Ed did the piloting and selected the lures; my responsibilities were not to fall in the water or accidentally set the boat on fire.

We were bumping the bottom here in 24 feet of water with deep-diving crankbaits-our very first pass--and Ed brought up a nineteen-inch walleye. A bad omen, thought Ed, bad luck to catch a fish on the first toss. I disagree; I think the fish don't care whether it's your first cast or your thirty-eighth and nothing counts as 'bad luck' with me unless your boat is struck by lightning.

But it turned out that there was something to Ed's theory after all, because we sat there for the next two hours and didn't catch one fish worth keeping. So Ed made an executive decision-time to give up on "Two Fingers" and head out.

Ed's next picked location, "Double Sands Point," turned out to be another washout. Mighty pretty scenery, but no fish were interested in coming up to take a look at it. Ed didn't really "work" the spot; we'd only given it a few trolling passes when something-call it 'instinct', call it 'experience', call it 'it's already one p.m., two hour left and there's no big fish in the boat'--told him to hang it up and head upriver.

I still had faith, and on the trip upstream Ed was able to raise our spirits by doing a medley of hits by Paul Anka and Helen Reddy. He doesn't have a fine voice, but it carries over the motor, and it can be truly inspiring to hear him belting out "I am Woman, hear me roar, in numbers to big to ignore" over the sound of a gunning engine. Several people on the shoreline turned their heads as we went by.

Spot 3, or "Old Rip Rap", was a mile-long trolling run. Ed had planned well; "Old Rip Rap's" chief advantage as a fishing spot turned out to be its proximity to our last hope, Spot 4. This was my first tournament; I wasn't used to fishing under this kind of time pressure. It was past one p.m., less than two hours to go and the three of us were getting a bit nervous-me, Ed, and the lonely two and a half pound walleye in our live well, who was already complaining about life in "solitary."

When we started that morning, Ed had figured that "Two Fingers" and the fourth spot he picked ("the Coliseum") had the best potential; he'd decided we'd fish the intermediary spots simply because they were on the way to the fourth and final spot. The pressure was on because the intermediary spots hadn't paid off. But Ed is known for keeping his cool and one of his sayings is "Don't worry-We're gonna get 'em, we always do."

We made it to "the Coliseum" at about 1:10 pm. The strategy here was to do regular, short trolling runs over promising bottom features. We were making our third trolling pass when we struck a "double"-two fish hit our two lines at the same moment. Ed brought in a four-and-a-half pounder while I dragged in a little one-and-half pounder.

We were back in the game, but we still needed at least one big one if we hoped to take first place.

Ed said we would grind this spot until it was time to go. The pleasure boats began to appear on the river and we were worried that they might inhibit our trolling strategy but fortunately traffic was light for a beautiful Friday afternoon.

We were trolling upstream when I got a heavy strike. When we got it into the boat it turned out to be a five-plus pound fish, and real beauty, too.

But it was 2pm; just an hour to go before 'closing time.' We had three decent fish, but we hadn't made our limit of five yet. We continued to grind the same pattern, the same tactics and by 2:30 it had paid off: two more two-and-a-half pounders by 2:30.

There was no point in staying any more, even though we were now hitting fish: better to be a little early for that weigh-in than two late.

The weigh-in was a bit of a disappointment for us-many if not most of our competitors had also made their limit, and we were nudged out of first place by mere ounces. And we didn't have the "big fish" of the day, either-the first place boat for the day had only four fish, but one of those was a formidable eight-plus pounder.

DAY TWO
Because we'd placed second the previous day, we were designated the second boat out in the first flight to leave the docks. Since we had had our chosen spots all to ourselves the first day we didn't want any of the competition trailing us, so we pulled a fast one.

Instead of going straight to a spot he knew would be productive, Ed decided we'd go straight across the river and fish a sub-par spot for while, until the other guys had to commit to a spot of their own. So we spent an hour or so fishing a shallow rocky bottom near falling water; lousy for walleye, but I pulled up two smallmouth bass.

We made our move when the coast was clear. At about 8:30 am we shot up to "the Coliseum" again and began to duplicate our tactics of the day before-short trolling runs over promising bottom, back and forth-grind that spot.

It was a different time of day, but by 9 am it was already starting to pay off-I hooked a very pretty two-and-a-half pound sauger. This confirmed to Ed that his decision to start early at this spot was correct, so we just kept on going-and a half an hour later I picked up another keeper; another sauger, just a little over two pounds this time.

By 9:30 we had four and half pounds of fish in the boat. Things were slack for another half hour, but then something very serious struck Ed's line.

He was actually shaking and he began broadcasting the fight: "This is a big fish-and he's hooked lightly!" He wore it down with great care; the runs it made were hard. But it eventually gave up and surfaced so that he could reel it in to the waiting net.

Ed thought that this might be the fish that could put it over the top-and with four and a half hours of tournament time left. When we got it into the boat it weighed five-and-a-half pounds.

After that, the action didn't stop. We were catching seventeen to eighteen inch fish almost as soon as we could get the lures to the bottom. We added some to our live well, returning the smaller ones to the water right away.

We stayed at the Coliseum until 1 pm. The only problem we had was that the walleye and sauger we were catching weren't getting any bigger, and we still had an hour and a half of fishing time (it would take us about a half an hour to get back for the weigh in.)

Ed decided our best move was to check out "Two Fingers" again and see what it would do for us on an afternoon run. We were hitting steadily at the Coliseum, but they were small. One big "home run" fish would put us over the top, and Ed's pre-fishing had told him that these could be found at "Two Fingers."

But the lunkers at "Two Fingers" were taking a break that day. All we ended up with was one undersized walleye that we released straight away; our streak was ending not with a bang but a whimper.

Now Ed wondered: is it worth it to hazard a quick trip back up to "the Coliseum", looking for afternoon action? He ultimately decided against it-the clock was ticking.

We stayed on "Two Fingers" til 2:30 and then we turned for home.

By now the river was crowded with Saturday boat traffic. Some of the competitors were already back when we pulled in, and their faces told different stories-triumph, tragedy, resignation.

It turned out that a lot of competitors caught their limits again. One pair of hot-shots had caught nothing on the first day but they startled the crowd by coming home with a scary boat-full of lunkers on the second. (They'd hooked these monsters in Pool 3 of the Mississippi, and if they'd turned in anything like that the first day, Ed and I would have been cooked.)

As it turned out, we kicked everyone's asses. And it was a good thing, too, because first prize was two thousand bucks, and that's a lot of lures. I shouldered aside the envious and disappointed as Eddie and I made our way to the dais, where we accepted our first-place fishing tournament trophy. I had won my very first fishing tournament, against forty six formidable competitors--thanks to the skill and experience of Ed Philpot. I am forty-six years old and this was the first time I had ever won anything since I got a prize for an essay on fire prevention in the sixth grade.

The afternoon sun flashed off the gold faces of our twin championship commemorative plaques, temporarily blinding the awe-struck, open-mouthed crowd that had left the bar to cheer us. As I studied them, I mused: how like our prey, the walleye, these people are- they had simply underestimated master fishing guide Ed Philpot, of StrikeQuest.