Nebraskaland

MayNebraskaland

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/823575

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Operation Walleye There is no time like the nighttime. By Jake Jadlowski F or as long as I can remember I've been a fisherman, or at least I've called myself one. Thanks to my old man, there was always time to squeeze in a week in Minnesota between the end of baseball season and the beginning of the school year. I grew up catching bluegill, which was the gateway to largemouth bass and the spark to fantasize about big pike. Largemouths and northerns, that was life. At least it was until a couple of years ago. On the way home from our yearly trek to Minnesota, a couple of buddies and I stopped in South Dakota. At the time I was still looking down on lazy walleye fisherman, but after I hooked up with a bottom bouncer walleye for the first time, it was game over. Our new addiction quickly turned into weekend walleye excursions and 18-hour days on the water. Bottom bouncing, jigging, and trolling – we chased limits and trophies and we chased them hard. I was all in; actually, we were probably too in. It didn't take long before fishing sunup to sundown wasn't satisfying the addiction. One of my buddies said he read something about catching walleyes under a full moon. Challenge accepted. Either we got lucky or someone was right. But we haven't looked back. Our craving of choice these days is trolling crankbaits for walleyes under the cover of darkness. There is something mysterious and unknown about the nighttime. Maybe it's the darkness or the moonlight or the silence. I don't know. Maybe it's because you feel like you're in the middle of the ocean. There's just something rugged and satisfying about chasing walleyes when everyone else is sleeping. In the dark, though, relying on and trusting your electronics is crucial. We use a Lowrance Elite-7 TI with the Navionics chip. Combining GPS navigation, down-scan, side-scan, and chirp – the mysteries of the deep come alive. The Elite-7 TI unit is also equipped with internal Wi-Fi. Using iPads and iPhones, we are able to connect to the Lowrance unit and mirror its screen on our tablets and smartphones. And with the help of a handy DeWalt USB charger that hooks up to my drill batteries, we are able to keep all four guys with eyes underwater all night without losing power. The driver, the guy on the front deck, and the two out of the back never have to abandon their post. But as cool as we thought our electronic system was, which also included newly installed LED under-dash light strips and a Bose bluetooth player, we struggled with efficiency. We didn't know how much line we had out, we all had different crankbaits tied on, and we were running them at different depths. It was hard to pattern walleyes with that much inconsistency in our game plan. It was time for a new one. Since we were staying up for days at a time, we tried to make the miserable Monday morning that always follows a little more worth it. We attempted to turn night trolling into "Operation Walleye." We expanded the budget to include planar boards. Turns out those are hard to see at night. In an attempt to illuminate them, we used glow sticks. Apparently, we can stay awake longer than they can. They were replaced with waterproof LED lights to keep the planar boards lit up all year long. Next, we upgraded to trolling rods and line counters. If we wanted to know the depths our cranks were running, we needed to know how much line we were letting out. And by eryone else is ryone else is 78 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2017 Rapala Jointed Shad Rap Smithwick Suspending Super Rogue Jr. Berkley Flicker Minnow

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