An Outdoorsman's Journal

   Big Wind/Walleye on Green Bay

Hello friends,

     As you may know, I am addicted to the outdoors and enjoy pushing things to the limit from time to time. I have a buddy who recently retired and has been a part of this column since it was started back in ‘89, his name is Doug Cibulka and he also loves to hunt and fish.
    This past week Doug and I tent camped at a campground on Green Bay in Oconto County and endured some very high seas in a boat that was tossed around like a leaf in a tornado. Long story, short we had an epic experience, life jackets required, in that we put a hurting on the walleye and lived to eatem!

Monday, May 19th
High 58, low 42

    Doug and I knew well in advance that we either had to bail on this trip or live with a solid northeast wind and the only thing I bail is hay or my boat. So poor Dougie had no choice but to pray, wear his vest and perform an excellent job as captain of his 16.7 Aluma Craft "Classic" powered by a 70 hsp Yamaha.
   Plan number one was to just fish the Oconto River as that would be safe. Good but ominous news hit us like a sinking ship when we pulled into our campground and there were 2 groups of fishermen filleting "limits of 20 to 25 inch walleye".  I started jabbering with these guys and Doug started getting that same feeling as he has about a thousand times when he knows Walters thinks we can do this. In other words, despite very high seas and our new friends in 22-foot watercraft, I figured as long as the bilge pump was operational that we could fish the bay, especially since what today was a sustained 17mph wind was
going to be 22 the next day.
   We built camp, rigged lines, Doug did a lot of mumbling about things I did not listen to and we launched the SS Minnow for some fun on the pond. We were either looking up at the clouds or down at bottom of the bay as we edged our way out to 8-10 feet of water with Mr. Cibulka at the helm. I started running lines which in this case would be two poles straight back of the boat, one close, one far and a left and right planer board all rigged with crawler harnesses.

   Heading into the waves the first 40 minutes we had zero action, when we turned around and had the wind at our back our first hit was a small perch, a minute later we had another hit and caught a 13.5 inch perch. Five minutes later there was another hit and this time
there was some solid heft to the fish and insanity in the fight. One person had to hold onto the steering wheel at all times the other had to fight fish and keep it out of other lines, in most cases, net it and somewhat importantly, not fall out of the boat.
   That first "eye" was 23-inches and within 5 minutes another fight was being fought and "eye" number 2 was a 26-incher. Suddenly Dougie C who got me in a lot of trouble as a kid, cuz I was always innocent, was losing his doubt of our "mutual decision" to fish the bay and we kept a southerly direction with the wind at our back.
  Another side story. Our net was too short, the boat driver could not let go of the wheel, the fish catcher had to get up front so the boat driver could net and drive. Super long story, short, the first fish we lost was our 10th and that is because our net dropped overboard and the fish catcher ripped the harness, did a quick cast, caught the net and it was a fair trade.
  "Eye" number 10 was landed, not a one was under 20-inches and I started pulling lines for the victory ride back to camp. While pulling the last 3 lines a 23 and 26 inch "eye' was landed and released.
   We made it back to camp, changed our underwear, cleaned our catch and had a big old "we caught an awesome limit and lived to tell about it celebration".

   Live till ya can't!

   Sunset