First time at Willard

This trip had been in the making for a little while and fatbass (member from another forum) and I finally had a day where our schedules could meet for some of the famed wipers of Willard Bay Reservoir.

I had never caught a wiper and fatbass is the "Wiper Disciple" as of late, so I was sure I'd get my hands on some ferocious fighters today. I got to his house with time to spare and we were on the road by 6:00am.

We launched at the North Marina and were already trolling 4 lines before the sun had even touched the water. It didn't take long before I had my first Willard hookup from my pointer off the planer board.

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My biggest walleye to date. Probably around 19 inches. I was hesitant to keep it, but fatbass reassured me that the meat is delicious (the only other walleye I've eaten was poorly prepared) and that was a keeper! :lol:

Into the well.

I had a new blue/white krocodile wobbling off the back about 50 or 60 behind us and scored my first wiper a few minutes later:

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Not bad at all. All the hype about the fight is true! These hogs will go where they want once they're hooked. All you can do is guide them and hope your line holds. It was great hear my drag actually WORKING again. It's been awhile since I had a big fight and it felt great to scratch another species off the list.

So now I was off the hook, but fatbass had only observed thus far. There was somewhat of a dry spell for both of us for a little while and then a strong hit broke the silence for fatbass.

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Great fish. I was sure that I'd get to see some fine specimens for the rest of the day and I wasn't disappointed.

The next fish would be the fish of the day.

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Wow. That was a mighty walleye at 23 inches and it apparently had a taste for human flesh since it sunk a fang into fatbass:

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Battle scars. 8) Just proof of a good day.

There's no exaggeration about the bugs either. INSECT INSANITY!!!

Notice all the little specks on my hoodie. Those are all bugs and you can't see all of them. They were everywhere and relentless to find out the most annoying way to "bug" us.

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(Gotta love the captain pose.)

They were bad, but we held out and kept fishing.

Here's a little reminder to check your lures from time to time. A lure that's swimming wrong will twist the line up pretty badly.

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FAIL

Yeah, that was fun to mess with (snip!). :roll: That mess was just the tip of the iceberg. No matter what, any time I opened the bale, line would spring out and start to wrap up around itself immediately. At least fatbass was kind enough to let me use one of his spare rods rather than waste valuable trolling time trying to fix my line problems.

Another fish from the Lucky Craft:

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The Lucky Craft had been my hot lure and was responsible for quite a few wipers visiting the boat today.

Now it was fatbass' turn to get some surface action:

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And then this beast:

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That was 20 inches and really took fatbass for a ride. Beauty of a fish.

I was glad to get another decent sized wiper and that would be it for the day.

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We caught quite a few that are still swimming, but this is what the table looked like before the carnage started:

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I've got some serious meat soaking in brine as I type. Those fillets should be ready any time now. :twisted:

Thanks to fatbass for a great day. He's the Willard Wizard, for sure. I had a lot of fun and now have a new respect for bass.

(After I soaked the fillets in brine for awhile, I fried up a walleye fillet and a wiper fillet.)

Really, really good! Tell me this doesn't look delicious.

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Happy Fishing, Humans.

:hail2thechief: :hail2thechief: :hail2thechief: