On May 20th 2010 Anthracite Outfitters had Tim from the Philly area out for a day trip kayak fishing the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. Tim found out about Anthracite Outfitters when he sat in on a seminar I spoke at during the Philadelphia Outdoor Expo. Tim said he was interested in the trip this time of year because I had mentioned in the talk that we don’t target smallmouth bass during the time of year they are closed to harvest, and our focus is centered on walleye. Tim, when he booked the trip, informed us he had never caught a walleye before and would like to fish for them. I’d like to note that in Pa. bass while closed to harvest are still legal to target with immediate release.
Dan (Eddy Rider) and I (Fish Tank) realized we had our work cut out for us because next to musky the walleye are the next most difficult fish to hit consistently on the river. The walleye can be finicky, hate bright light, and are often prone to nibbling which makes them hard to detect.
The day of the trip started out foggy with the river a bit turbid yet still relatively clear with a forecast for bright sun, clear skies, and high 70 degree air temps. By the time we had the kayaks off the trailer and rigged
the fog had begun to lift giving away to a bright sunny day, not the best light condition for walleye. Tim had expressed an interest in fishing with the fly rod in the event fish were rising to bugs. I fished earlier in the week and had good sized carp rolling on flies. Hooking up 5#-10# carp on a 5wt. would be a hoot.
Once we launched I gave Tim a brief primer on casting the fly rod from the kayak. He took to it naturally and was putting out good casts. Unfortunately the bugs didn’t show in a volume that would put fish on top in lanes high in the column. We made our way down to our first higher percentage spot, which is a mouth of a creek. En route Tim hit a nice rock bass, which he said was the biggest he had ever caught.
I gave Tim my musky rod to throw around the creek mouth as there is some serious lumber and structure there. It’s always worth taking a handful of casts there for musky as one never knows when those crazy fish will show. This day no musky came out to play.
The first half of the day was relatively slow. We worked low in the column. The go to lure for clients this year has been a small 2” storm shad in the trout color. We remove the belly treble and that lure is money. A few smallies were hit before lunch but they were by-catch bottom bouncing for the walleye.
After lunch we proceeded down river. I was eager to move on as the best walleye water was yet to come. I had mentioned to Dan and Tim that my money is on finding walleye at the tailout at the base of an elevation drop and consequent rapid area. This area is perhaps my favorite water type. It’s a long rapid section flowing over boulders and eventually tails out in about 15’ of water with good readable seams and a bottom substrate of mixed sized boulders. As well it has good shoreline eddy pockets, which are fish magnets. It screams walleye!
The rapid area actually has an island a pretty long island in the middle of it. We came around the back of the island as that also has potential to hold the walleye. Once we got down to the base of the island I made the call and we shot across the river. This is where the trip was to be made or broken. I took Tim up to the head of a shoreline eddy and had him start with a #3 mepps inline spinner. Walleye will pounce on a spinner as they do very well to trigger them. Sure enough in a few casts he had a fish on. He got it close to the yak saw a light flash and the fish threw the hook. Tim said it looked and felt different than a small mouth. The walleye were there. While Tim worked the spinner I went out further in the river to work a mid river seam with a big profiled sculpin jig I created in the late winter. My gut instinct basically told me that we were just going to have to poke around the bottom and try to keep the jigs down but out of the rocks. I paddled as far up into the moving water as I could go, and set the kayak’s attitude on the drift. I put out a decent cast and got down. Basically I was lightly tapping the rocks on the bottom with my sculpin jig. Sure enough I felt the thud and up came a 16” walleye. Tim said he’d like to take a few walleye home as he never ate them before. I gave the fish to Dan to put on the stringer and made a bee line to Tim. I showed him the seams I was reading, and had him go back to that small paddle tail shad. Tim was awesome and did everything I had explained. Tim had also been fluke fishing from a boat before so he got the idea real quick when I said pretend your fishing for fluke and just touch the bottom with the jig. Tim got after it. It wasn’t long before he was on. Originally he though he was snagged, but as he was falling back on current his drag wasn’t screaming. I said “you’re on, tighten the drag and real!” To my greatest relief he landed his first walleye of his life, a nice healthy 17” fish.
He went on to hit a few smallies and dropped another eye yak side. How one fish can make the trip.
Tim worked the area hard for a while paddling up into the heavy flow and working the drift back to the slower water. Eventually we moved on. At this point it was getting on in the day and we fished our way to the take out. We all hit a few more smallies looking for walleye, but no more showed.
All in all it was a gorgeous day and we lucked out with a top notch client. I hope he enjoyed his walleye fillets. He worked for them and earned them!
Until next trip tight lines and safe paddling!
Catch ‘em up!!!
Hank
P.S. Ocean Kayaks aren't just for the Ocean, they work just fine in sweet water too!!! ;D
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