Charlie's Gone Fishing
guide Charlie Worrath

Spring Time Fishing for Walleyes

by fishing guide Charlie Worrath

My mother-in law loves to fish, especially in the summer, but never got much of a chance to go. With her husband being an owner of a bait shop (at the time of this story but has since retired), her daughter working at the bait shop (now working at Northern Star Co-op grocery store), and son-in-law a fishing guide. She got to hear about it, see the bait, and that’s as close to going fishing, as she would usually get.

One late summer day my wife Terri and I set a day aside to take her mother fishing. We got to the bait shop (Fred’s Bait) around 8:00 AM to get our bait and supplies for the day. Had the usual people there and with usual BS going on, as we hurried ourselves along. There was pretty good bite going on for walleyes on humps on Big Winnie at the time. We landed our boat at the resort on the east side of Winnie. It was a beautiful day with no wind, just the way I like it for fishing those mid lake bars and humps.

We arrived at my waypoint where I had fished the previous day and had a good bite going. The bottom of the depth finder lit up. I got everyone a rod with high hopes, I reach for the bait cooler, and it was gone. There we set with rod in hand, fish under the boat and no bait, none! We had left it back at the bait shop. So our solution was to go back too the resort to buy bait. When we arrive at the dock, my mother-in-law insisted, and said she would go up and buy the bait. The resort owner at the time (has since sold out) bought his leeches and crawler from Fred’s Bait. When she got back to boat with the bait and a shock look on her face. Something was up, first the leeches he took out 1 leech from each dozen and replaced it with a minnow, then Instead of selling the bait at price they paid for the bait or having it replaced the next day, he had charged her a premium price, but gave her a piece of very costly advice, don’t be so anxious.

The following year about the same time. We again set a day aside to fish with in-laws. This time along with her mother came her step dad, Fred. Again we headed to the big pond. This time we had not forgotten the bait cooler. The day before Doc O’Brian had called me in on a good bite on the Bena bar. The wind was out of south-to-south east at 15 mph or more giving us 2 to 3 ft high waves. Which makes it a more difficult to fish these fish in 20 to 25 ft of water. The key was the wind being in the right direction for nice controlled drift along the break and the fish were still there. Terri, Kathy, and I use rigs with 7 ft. snell and 1/4 oz weight, tip with a leech or crawler, and started off with a bang. Fred laid on deck floor in front of the boat with 1/8 oz. jig tip with minnow and arm hanging over the side of the boat.

Talking about how he loves throwing back those slot fish we were getting. Needless to say he hadn’t caught a fish yet. We had caught a dozen or more by this time. I tried to till him he needs to put on a rig and heaver weight or just a heaver jig to at least have chance of catching these fish especially in this wind. He kept saying he was fine. I finally got a hold of his line with the help of Terri and put a 3/8oz. jig on and tipped it with a leech. Terri told him I know what your doing, he said what! She said you don’t want to catch a fish today, so you can go back to Vets Club and say you fished with a fishing guide all day on Winnie and never caught a fish! He just smiled. The heaver jig and proper bait ruinned his plan, as he caught a walleye, and a few more after he sat up and started to fish.

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