On Oahe

FLW Walleye Tour Western Division kicks off competition on Missouri River above Oahe Dam

PIERRE, S.D. – The FLW Walleye Tour may have hit Lake Oahe at just the right time for a fruitful Western Division tournament, taking place June 24-26 on the nation’s fourth largest reservoir by volume. According to anglers prefishing the tournament as well as some locals, the walleye bite is starting to warm up on this Missouri River reservoir above the Oahe Dam.

Competitors will try to capitalize on that warming trend Thursday during the opening round of tournament action. And this afternoon’s first weigh-in at 3 p.m. will reveal how many of the 116 anglers fishing the second Western Division event of the year have locked in on the patterns and presentations that will keep them in the running for top prizes of up to $35,000 in the Pro Division and $7,500 in the Co-angler Division.

The bite

South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Fisheries Biologist Robert Hanten Jr. said, “From what I’ve been seeing this week, it seems like the walleyes are moving down to the middle zone of the South Dakota portion of Lake Oahe – areas like Little Bend and Bush’s (Landing). It seems north of there the bite has slowed down a little.”

That’s a good thing for Walleye Tour competitors fishing this week on a reservoir with an area of more than 370,000 acres, a length of about 230 miles and maximum depths of over 200 feet. With the pool level historically high right now, making walleyes tougher than usual to locate, a bite that’s heating up closer to the Spring Creek launch site is a godsend as it will give anglers more fishing time.

“We’ve got a reservoir that’s plumb full right now … so the area to search for fish has almost doubled,” Hanten said. “Typically what we see with that flooded vegetation – those fish go fairly shallow this time of year.”

Taken from various sources, the Lake Oahe walleye bite seems to be best right now in depths of anywhere from 5 to 15 feet, and a variety of baits and techniques are working. However, most are reporting that the night crawler bite has come to the forefront.

Co-angler Rodney Horgen of Deer River, Minn. – fishing with local pro Gerrick McComsey of Fort Pierre, S.D., on the tournament’s opening day – arrived here a week ago to prefish with his son and Walleye Tour pro Bjorn Horgen. He said their practice was “slow in the beginning, but we finally dialed in on them.” They tried minnows, leeches, crankbaits and other enticements throughout the week, but zeroed in on night crawlers in recent days with orange working best as a color for lures or live-bait rigging adornments.

Hanten reported something similar, adding that crawlers can imitate mayfly larvae, though he cautioned it was his personal speculation: “It seems like a bottom bouncer and a plain hook on a leader with half a crawler is working well for fish that aren’t that hungry. Mayfly hatches are a good food source for walleyes.”

Tournament logistics, details

Walleye Tour competitors are paired as a pro and co-angler per boat each day. They are allowed to keep eight walleyes – with a minimum length of 14 inches and only two fish allowed over 20 inches – and weigh their five best fish each day, sharing that weight for the day (pros and co-anglers carry each day’s weight for individual accumulated weight totals combined over three days).

The top 10 professionals and top 10 co-anglers, based on combined weight from days one and two, continue competition on the final day. Winners are determined by heaviest combined weight from all three days and are fishing for top awards of up to $35,000 in the Pro Division and $7,500 in the Co-angler Division.

In FLW Walleye Tour competition, anglers are also vying for valuable points in hopes of qualifying for the 2010 FLW Walleye Tour Championship to be held on Leech Lake in Walker, Minn., Sept. 23-25.

Anglers will take off from Spring Creek Resort and Deep Water Marina located at 28229 Spring Creek Place in Pierre, S.D., at 7 each morning. Weigh-ins will also be held at Spring Creek Resort and Deep Water Marina beginning at 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Saturday’s final weigh-in will be held at Beck Chevrolet located at 500 S. Grant in Pierre beginning at 4 p.m.

For walleye-fishing fans unable to attend the festivities in person, you can catch all the weigh-in action live at FLWOutdoors.com with FLW Live. Show time starts at 3 p.m. Central today.

Thursday’s conditions

Sunrise: 5:58 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 61 degrees

Expected high temperature: 86 degrees

Water temperature at the ramp: 65 degrees

Wind: SSE at 5 mph

Maximum humidity: 57 percent

Day’s outlook: sunny with temperatures warming rapidly into the low to middle 80s; winds S at 10 to 15 mph