Convergence 18': White Eyed Whale

After seeing both a walleye and a huge rainbow on Wednesday, I just had to go back to the tidal river yesterday to see what I could catch other than suckers. Not that the suckers got boring after just half a dozen, but the two other species are far less frequent in that water and catching the odd fish out is always more exciting to me than catching just a few of the same.

It was cloudy. Much, much better conditions for catching both trout and walleye during the day. What exactly my odds were I did not know, fish can and do come and go from this water in a matter of hours. Intercepting migrations is not always cut and dry.

Well, I won't tip toe around things... I got really stupidly lucky. The same school of suckers I had worked the day before that had the big rainbow in it no longer had that fish as the weird renegade, but I could see something in the mix, significantly bigger than all the suckers. I stared at it for 10 minutes trying to figure out what it was. My instincts told me striper. No herring were in the river yet but an early striper is never out of the question this time of year. Then, two suckers readjusted their positions and I got a clear look at the tip of the fishes tail. It was white. This was a walleye. And a good one. I knew I had disturbed the school on my approach because a small rock slid down the bank and plopped in the water, so I quietly left to hunt for the monster rainbow in the meantime.

When I came back an hour later I took no chances. I knew the school would probably still on edge so I couldn't just walk up to them. It took me 25 minutes to get from the top of the trail down the bank and into casting position. Once I was there I changed flies, re-tied twice, and added a splitshot in front of my fly, all the while only moving my forearms and head. I knew the fish would react poorly to the fly plunking loudly in the water, all it would take was one over anxious sucker to flinch and the whole school would spook. So I performed swing casts. Not exactly dapping, casts that kept the fly low and allowed me to actually slow its descent to the surface of the water. It took me a while to get the fly to drift the way I wanted it to, and I was being very, very picky. Remember, this fish was in a thick school of suckers plastered on the bottom. There were times when the walleye's head was actually underneath one or two suckers. I knew the fly had to be right in the fish's face to elicit any kind of response. I also new that in all probability the response would be a refusal. But I had to try, and when the fish I'm looking at is something like this one you can bet my attempt is not going to be half hearted.

I made one move that by all mean could very well have been what ended the game. I let the fly fall too deep well behind the walleye and it caught gently on a sucker's tail. I sat there just lightly shaking my rod tip and cringing. I knew that if I snagged that sucker it was game over. Eventually the fish was bothered enough by the extra weight on its tail that it shook it off. That lead to an unexpected chain reaction of suckers readjusting their positions that gave me a clear path to drift my streamer right in front of the targeted fish. I knew this was my chance and I began to shake. By now I knew where I had to cast to get the fly to fall into the right place to swing it by the fish. I did it right, somehow.

Thump thump.

The fly did what I needed it to do, falling into the clear line formed by the parting suckers.

Thump thump.

I gave it a light pull to lift it off the bottom, landing it again a foot ahead of the walleye.

Thump thump.

I lifted, making the last action I would make that would either spook the big fish or convince it to eat.

Thump thump.

The walleye turned hard towards me, ahead of the fly, making a move that appeared to be a refusal, then it swung back agressively, opened its mouth, pinned the fly against the bottom, and exhaled sand out of its gills.

This is where an EKG would have shown me to be flat-lining. Even though I was clinically dead, I still managed to set the hook.

I've never had a walleye run as far as this one did. Granted, I'd also never hooked a walleye in moderate current with a 5wt fiberglass rod before either. When my heart started working again I gave chase, which turned out to be unnecessary as the fish turned and charge upstream past me. Every time it shook it's head gave me chills, I could see that it was skin hooked. Every now and then I get lucky, and this time... I got lucky.

Some fisherman may not fully comprehend why I've gone crazy over what really isn't that big a walleye in the grand scheme of things. Well, it's pretty simple really.
I'm enamored with targeting these fish with a fly rod. I caught them incidentally on spinning gear, and enjoyed it, but I never exactly fell in love with them. I have since then. There's something fascinating to me about fly fishing for walleye. I live in a place that just isn't that good for walleye fishing in general. It's OK, but I wouldn't even put CT in a list of states to go to catch your first walleye on the fly or on spinning tackle. The body of water where I caught this fish, well, it isn't even a walleye fishery, just a place that happens to have a scattered number of them. If there are any other people at all targeting walleye here, it is a number in the single digits. Targeting sea run browns may actually be a more productive proposition.

And here I was, holding the biggest walleye I had ever caught, having just sight cast to it in a small channel of a not much larger freestone tidal river, watching it quickly regain energy as water welled up and roiled the surface from its gills workings. She let me know she was ready and I let go, watching her swim off strong. I could still see here against the sand 70 feet away and she sped up and left the channel entirely, undoubtedly thinking to herself how dumb it was to have holed up in that shallow channel.

That take, that sudden change of mind that the fish made right as the fly got to it, that amazing beautiful thing that happened in full view of me in just 5 feet of crystal clear water among a huge school of suckers. I will never, ever forget that. I'm not sure I'll ever see a walleye eat a fly again, almost certainly not in that detail. That's what fishing is all about for me. Every now and then I get to experience something that gives me a feeling of awe that is impossible to describe with words.