Lost Jigs and Searching for Walleyes

Like last week, this week's trip took me back to Angostura to fish with my friend Matt as we continued to scout areas for the walleye tournament we are in next weekend. As before, we tried a few spots that have normally been good for us in the past, but they proved to be unfruitful for the most part.

Judging from the concentration of fishing boats in a couple of areas (which we try to avoid), activity seems to be focusing much more on the flats of the lake currently, so we tried an area near where we'd found several decent sized 'eyes the week before. We were rewarded with a couple dozen fish and a lot of snags and lost jigs trolling in 8' to 16' of water.

Trolling in this manner, the jigs are tipped with plastics or minnows, we expect snags as do most walleye fishermen who use jigs. But, I seemed to find a lot more of them on this trip and as a result, lost nearly a dozen jigs to the sunken brush piles below us, including what I had left of my favorite walleye jig, the Thumper Jig from Northland Fishing Tackle.

The spinning blade on these jigs combined with the longer shank hook, that is perfect for rigging Impulse Core and Swim'n Grub plastics, have been killer jigs for me. We were catching fish though, so we took our lure losses in stride since it was for the greater cause.

While we didn't catch anything over 20", like we'd hoped to, we did catch a good mix of 15"-18" mostly spawned out fish and, with catches in the area two weeks in a row, gives us a good pattern and an area we will for sure be looking to hit up come tournament time. But not before I hit the store to replace all those lost jigs.