- WEEKLY POLL
Walleye Madness ends with record-setting catches
Big Blades. Big Crawlers. Big Fish.
That was the key for the winners at the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit East division season opener at Port Clinton and the finals for Walleye Madness.
Anglers Jason Kopf from Avon Lake and Mike Miller from Brunswick delivered a whopping 48.95 pounds to the scale on the first day of the tournament – and shattered the five fish record basket set at 46.65 pounds in June of 2007 on the Eastern Basin of Lake Ontario. They were just as surprised as everyone to see the total weight come up on the stage.
“The battery was dying on our scale on the boat,” laughed
Miller, age 32 and fishing in the MWC for only the second time. “It
kept telling us that these big fish were 6 pounds and change and we
kept measuring on the board and seeing how big they were and saying…’no
way – that’s gotta be a 9 or 10 pound fish, so we just
kept culling based on length.” And cull they did. “We
got into some big fish about 2:30 pm and before we knew it we were
culling 8 pounders out of the boat – 6 or 8 of them! Can you
imagine that??!!” It was a great day and something they
will remember for the rest of their lives. Add a second day basket
of 27.85 pounds and the duo put together 76.80 pounds for the win,
capturing $16,850 for first place plus $1,000 for the Ranger Cup. It
was Kopf’s first MWC tournament, ever, let alone a circuit win.
Their spot was an area that is known to hold fish well between Middle Island and North Bass, about ¼ mile to 1 mile off the Canadian border. They made a 2 mile stretch trolling in a straight line at 1 mph with their bow mount, using tattle flags on their inline planer boards. Their set up was number 6 or 7 Silver Streak hammered red, copper and chartreuse blades with pink or red beads. They ran a slider with a single treble #4 on 12 pound mono and 7’ fluorocarbon leaders. They were 30-50 feet back with one ounce inline weights, about 20-25 feet in depth in 37 feet of water. The big fish were hungry. The warm weather during the week of pre-fishing really turned them on to eat. “These big fish were vibrant in color, fighting and eating aggressively after this warm up,” shared Kopf. They found clean water they liked and trolled a mud line that held the bait fish.
Jason Kopf had just taken delivery recently of his new Ranger Boat and he and Miller signed up to fish the entire MWC East in 2008 and jump in with a commitment. “I’ve been studying and preparing for this for eight months,” shared Kopf. The team has fished local tournaments with some success so decided to step up to the big leagues of team walleye fishing….the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit. “This is a passion that I have,” shared Miller. “I have an aspiration to achieve success from here forward.”
When asked the key to their success they replied their big colorful blades and the absolute biggest night crawlers they could find brought them the big fish they were looking for. It was a match made in heaven.
Jeff Koester of Brookville, IN and Scott Rhodes of Traverse City, MI repeated the title of Cabela’s MWC Walleye Madness Champions cashing in a $10,000 bonus out of a total Madness purse of $29,100. Koester and Rhodes have won three out of the last four tournaments held on Lake Erie for the MWC. Last year’s Madness, last year’s World Walleye Championship and now the 2008 Walleye Madness again. They certainly have the program dialed in.
The bracketed tournament format isn’t quite the same as a regular tournament. Simply besting the team in your bracket is all that is required. Koester and Rhodes had 31.43 pounds on Friday to knock out Jeff Lash of North Lawrence, OH & Alan Baumgardner of Essex, MD who had 11.83 pounds. Then, 29.83 pounds against Larry Rhoads II of Oregonia, OH & Larry Rhoads, Sr. of Burlington, KY who brought in 14.13 pounds. The final day required a modified program for the Final Four – allowing only 4 fish per team rather than the previous days’ five. That’s because the winners of the first round would fish again and need to stay within state regulations for daily possession limits.
The four teams remaining fished from 8 am to 1 pm. Steve Skupien of Frankfort, IL and Dave Kleszyk of Oakbrook Terrace, IL had 10.09 pounds to Jay Walsh of Chicago, IL and Dave Gossar of Wedron, IL who unfortunately zeroed. That meant Skupien and Kleszyk were going up against the winner in the other bracket. It was Koester and Rhodes that brought in 18.96 pounds as Donald Olson of Andover, MN and Randy Carroll of Oswego, IL had 15.32 pounds.
You don’t have to have an amazing basket to win – you just have to have enough at the right times to advance forward. It all came together once again for these two – often within the last moments. Skupien/Kleszyk were able to pull 17.14 pounds (3 fish) for the final round and Koester/Rhodes weighed in at 20.56 pounds (four fish). Just like the earlier round on Sunday – their fish came through in just the nick of time.
“All week we were hitting fish just fine in the afternoons, but our morning bite was slow,” shared Scott Rhodes. “We were a little nervous about the 8 to 1 time-frame because we’d have to make it come together in order to stay in it for the afternoon round.” And with 30 seconds to spare their last fish hit. “We got that fish in the live-well and threw everything on the bottom of the floor and just booked it. I’m surprised we had all our rods when we got in – it was pandemonium getting in on time.” But they needed that last fish to best Olson & Carroll.
“If we wouldn’t have gotten that fourth fish we wouldn’t have been able to advance – they would have beaten us with their three – for sure,” added Jeff Koester. And the afternoon wasn’t much different. “We were sweating it out with only 2 fish, and FINALLY between 4:30 and 5:30 we were able to get our limit and, once again, throw everything down and head for Port Clinton.” They made it with a few minutes to spare – a tribute to their Mercury Motor that got them in on time.
“This is a great format for fishing – I love it,” shared Koester. “It’s much more of a mental game than any other format or style,” added Rhodes. “You really have a LOT of stress on the final day. It’s like winning two tournaments within the same day and that’s just crazy stressful.” “But we love it!” exclaimed Koester.
Sounding a bit like a broken record, you can read about their strategy at the Northeast corner of Kelleys Island from either last year’s event in Port Clinton or the Championship out of Dundee, Michigan. It wasn’t much different than this one: in-line spinners with crawler harnesses, white beads, #5 chartreuse bait fish blades, .8 mph, 51’ back. But there was a little “tweak” that got those fish to bite when they were in a panic that something had to change and they had to get more fish. They stalled the boards. Sharp turns that essentially stopped the baits are what triggered the bites that they needed. “Stalling the boards was the key, definitely,” added Koester.
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