The calm after the storm

Walleye Tour finalists will enjoy pleasant day on Illinois River

SPRING VALLEY, Ill. – The previous two days saw fierce winds whipping the Illinois River. Last night, the skies unleashed a brief, but formidable round of thunderstorms. Today, the top-10 pros and co-anglers fishing the FLW Walleye Tour Eastern Division event will see their diligence rewarded with the week’s most pleasant day.

Mostly sunny skies, warm conditions and winds greatly diminished from the 30- to 40-mph stuff will give the top-10 pro and co-anglers an enjoyable theater in which to make their final run at the top spot. Second place pro Tommy Skarliss of Waukon, Iowa said another blustery day would not have hurt his feelings, but today’s forecast offers some attractive opportunities.

“I’m a little bummed out that there’s not more wind today,” Skarlis said. “I would have wanted the wind so it would take a few (competitors) off their game. But with the lack of wind today, there might be a situation where these fish are a little easier to catch. If my boat control is better, I can turn the boat sideways and spread everything out, so I’m cutting corn with a combine instead of a 2-row picker and cover some more water to catch some more fish.”

Starting today with 15 pounds, 9 ounces, Skarlis trails pro leader Jacob Lapine’s 15-14 by a mere 5 ounces. Seems like a small gap to close, but big fish have been hard to come by. Moreover, the huge numbers of day one – catches of 50-75 fish were common – fizzled on day two. Skarlis hopes that the smaller field of day three will likely loosen some of pressured fish.

“What happens is you get a bunch of boats on the fish and they beat them up and remove a lot of fish from the places we’re fishing,” he said. “They don’t get a chance to reload overnight, so you have to guess in the morning as to where the hottest spot to start in the morning is going to be.

Here’s a look at how the top-5 teams will be fishing:

1. Jacob Lapine and Steve Beasley: Seeking to offer the fish a different look than the jigging and lead lining that most teams have employed this week, Lapine will stick with the 3-way rigs that got him to the final round. A 3-way swivel links his main line to a bottom bumping weight and a leader towing a live minnow or a nightcrawler. Lapine did not want to divulge details about his rig’s specifics, but he said he’s making adjustments to trigger reaction strikes, as opposed to feeding strikes.

“The current plays a factor, as well as how the fish are behaving,” Lapine said.

2. Tommy Skarlis and John Spiegel: Jigs tipped with live minnows and Berkley Gulp minnows have been the mainstay for Skarlis. He’ll run the same again today and let the fish determine how he refines the presentation. However, he expects the artificial baits to provide the tactical advantage.

“The good thing about Gulp is that it stays on the hook – especially in high wind and with all these little fish,” he said. “That’s the problem – we have so many in the 9- to 13-inch range. You want to have something durable on the hook and minnows fly off the hook. The Gulp allows you to handle more fish.”

3. John Balla and Craig Cayemberg: Balla will fish Lindy Fuzzy Grub jigs tipped with minnows. He upsized to 5/8-ounce jigs on day two because of the strong wind, but he’ll drop down to 3/8-ounce today, unless the wind kicks up again. Pink/white and chartreuse will be his top colors. Once he secures a limit, Balla said he’ll switch to a 4-inch shad body on a trolling jig and hunt for big fish.

4. David Kolb and Jim Milewsky: Half-ounce Cabela’s jigs with black and white or black and gold tails will get the duty today. Kolb rigs his jigs with stinger harnesses to eliminate short strikes.

5. Tom Keenan and Thomas Kaus: A late-morning adjustment on day two enabled Keenan to identify a productive scenario that yielded a solid limit of 7-3 and jumped him up from 17th place to fifth. Abandoning his early jigging tactics, Keenan did his damage by pulling crankbaits on lead line. He’ll return to this tactic today. Notably, Keenan’s was the only boat that ran west of the Highway 89 Bridge at the morning launch.

Logistics

Weigh-ins will be held at the Spring Valley Boat Club located at 13862 Illinois Highway 89 in Spring Valley beginning at 3 p.m. Starting at 1:30 p.m., prior to the weigh-in, a Family Fishing Clinic will be held where fans can learn from the best the different styles, techniques, and baits for landing that prized walleye.

Pros and co-anglers are randomly paired each day and fish for a combined boat weight. Pros compete against other pros, and co-anglers compete against other co-anglers. The full field competes during the two-day opening round for one of 10 final-round slots based on their two-day accumulated weight. Weights carry over to day three, with the winners determined by the heaviest three-day weight.

Saturday’s conditions

Sunrise 5:50 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 58 degrees

Expected high temperature: 77 degrees

Water temperature: 58-59 degrees

Wind: Southwest 10-12 mph

Maximum humidity: 35 percent

Day’s outlook: Mostly sunny