Leading the 37 boat field are Dan Zwick and Tony Kobriger with five fish for 15.63lbs. Prefishing had started out tough for the team, as they had to get to know the river again. “A lot of our waypoints from last year are on land,” said Kobriger. “We tried one, two, three, four, five, got stuck in a sand bar, six, seven, eight spots today.”
“Boat control was important,” added Zwick. “You had to stay in about a two foot range or you just weren’t there.” They were using Berkley Ripple Shad to imitate what they saw the fish coughing up in their live well, and put nine legal fish in the boat, including a 7.19 pounder. Tomorrow they plan on hitting all of the same spots, minus the sandbar. Their goal is to put five fish in the boat.
In second place are Derek Navis and Tom Hoinacki with five for 14.29lbs. They are followed by Rick Walter and Brian Woodward with five for 12.77lbs. They had a good prefish with Woodward’s brother and Walter’s wife.
Today was also good for them, as they locked through and caught fish on their first spot.
Boat control was critical for the team. “I’ll tell you what, if you don’t have a MinnKota i-Pilot, if you don’t have one and you are pitching or casting or trying to work any kind of current, I don’t know how you are doing it. It gets us locked on a spot and we can just work it.”
“We caught quality fish today, I think we only got three unders,” he added. The boat traffic at the locks and the order that the fish come in will determine how long they spend at their spot tomorrow.
Fourth place is being held by Dennis Butz and Scott Allen with four for 12.76lbs. During prefishing they only caught a couple legal fish a day. Today they hit three of the spots where they got fish prefishing. They were able to pick up a couple in each spot. “We had to find the current and current breaks along dips. We just jigged on top of them,” said Allen. Tomorrow the goal is to just get a limit.
Boats are scheduled to take off at 8am tomorrow morning and return at 5pm. Boat control could be a challenge, as 23mph winds are expected with gusts up to 40mph.
Join us at Walleye Central for continued coverage.
