Sunday July 3, 16

[wakina]

Started just north of Crane Reef with a NW troll pulling Harnesses with meat with hatchet blades in Pink Panties and Brown/gold with TT-40 divers 30 back behind Church TX-22 Boards, stopping short of the large pack of boats that was WNW of West Sister. SOG 1.9 to 2.3 fished 4.5 hours in that area and went thru 2.5 dozen crawlers. Caught my first walleye before getting the 2nd line in the water, turn out to be short, next one was 17.5 for the box, the keepers were few and far between after that and finished the day with 3 in the 17 to 18 inch range, I threw back enough 15 1/4 to 15 1/2 to make a limit and then some but don't like to keep them that small. I don't have to worry about shrinkage as I can keep them alive in my livewell. I did not catch any Sheeps and just one White perch. Like I said I went thru 2.5 doz crawlers (actually 31 if they were counted accurate at the bait store) and did not lose any to unknowns(clean hooks) when checking bait. Doing the math backwards it would mean that I caught and handled 29 eyes with 26 of them being shorts.

As stated before in other threads the water was extremely clear! There were times that the sonar screen was nothing but solid marks, top to bottom there is a super school of walleyes in that area right now feeding on the Mayflies, which were coming up in big balls off the bottom. Trouble is they are mostly shorts. TV 13 Radar last night at 11:00 pm showed a large hatch of Bugs.

Casters were handling allot of fish also, saw allot of nets going over the whole time as I made my way thru the scattered pack of boats most of them casting.

[Defernaut]

How much longer do you think the mayflies will be around in large numbers? I was up 3 weeks ago and they were just starting. I'm heading up next Monday and I hope they will be gone for the season.