High-plains drifters
RCL Tour top 20 prepare for possibility of wind despite nice start to day three
PIERRE, S.D. – Good morning, Lake Oahe. For the third day of competition in the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour here, the morning dawned sunny and calm. Sounds great, but the high skies, scant ripple and forecast for wind later in the day are a mixed blessing for the top 20.
While about two-thirds of the top 20 were trolling on opening day, there was a reversal of fortunes Thursday when the trollers struggled and the baiters made strong comebacks or turned in steady performances.
One such measure of consistency is leader and Lund pro Bill Hall of Algona, Iowa, who weighed 14 pounds, 6 ounces for starters and 15 pounds, 2 ounces for cappers. But despite the mellow conditions, Hall is ready for the worst-case scenario.
“If we have high wind,” Hall says, “I’ll have to have total boat control with two, three or four sea anchors.”
The parachute-like drift socks are a popular way to put the brakes on a drifting boat in the searing winds of the Dakotas – or anywhere, for that matter.
An additional consideration for many of the competitors is where the walleyes go from here. In dependable reservoir fashion, walleye location is anything but reliable, with day-to-day movement of several miles to confound the competitors’ best-laid plans.
“They won’t be there Friday,” says 10th-place semifinals qualifier Bruce Samson of Minnetrista, Minn. “But I’ll go there anyway. Then I’ve got a run, a whole series I’ll hit.”
Whether the suspended fish in the company of smelt, a primary food source on Oahe, will be there Friday also remains to be seen. Smelt are hightailing downstream, with the walleyes behind them, with warming water that encourages them to seek cooler depths closer to the Oahe Dam. The crankbaiters, therefore, could have a tougher time not only relocating their fish but also getting them to bite with brighter skies and calmer water.
Meanwhile, in a father-and-son RCL first, the elder Hall, Bill, is competing against his son, Chad, the 11th-place semifinals with qualifying weight of 27 pounds, 5 ounces. Never before have a father and son made the top-20 cut in the same RCL tourney.
How it all unfolds for the Halls and everyone else will be determined at Friday’s weigh-in. The top 20 return at 3 p.m. Central to Spring Creek Resort, about 10 miles north of the Oahe Dam, and hit the scales afterward at Wal-Mart, 1600 N. Harrison Ave., in Pierre.
Thursday’s conditions:
Sunrise: 5:55 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 47 degrees
Expected high temperature: 62 degrees
Water temperature: 62-68 degrees
Wind: from the north at 10 mph
Relative humidity: 71 percent
Day’s outlook: mostly cloudy with isolated sprinkles early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon; north winds increasing 10-20 mph