It’s walleye time

FISHING

A passion turns into an obsession this time of year

By Doug Newhoff, correspondent

SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn.

— Not everyone welcomes those first fall mornings when frost covers the windshield and you go searching for a stocking cap and gloves.

Diehard Mississippi River walleye anglers are different.

This is the time of the year when our passion becomes an obsession. The fish are on the feed as they fatten up for winter, and trophy-caliber walleyes that haven't seen a lure in months leave their backwater hideouts and return to the main channel. Best of all, they will clobber a jig pitched to structure like wingdams, rock piles and lateral rock.

So, when Walleye Tim invites you to join him for a day on Pool 2, you make it work.

Wife expecting a baby in the next few days?

'Just hang in there, honey, Walleye Tim just called. And by the way, can you take the car in for a service appointment today?'

That colonoscopy on the schedule?

'Yeah, we're going to have to reschedule that. Got any openings next year?'

Walleye Tim is Tim Harms, a northeast Iowa native who now lives in the Twin Cities area. For the last 20-plus years, he's been picking apart Pool 2, which is home to a tremendous walleye population thanks to a catch-and-release only regulation. When you fish with Harms, the question isn't if you will catch walleyes, it's how many and how big.

Thanks to unseasonably warm weather, it took a little longer than usual for the bite to fire up this fall.

I joined Harms and Chad Kruse, his lifelong friend who still calls northeast Iowa home, for the Oct. 5 Mississippi River Hog Haul. It's an annual event that brings together some of the best Pool 2 anglers, including legendary Hall of Fame guide Dick Grzywinski, for a fun day of competitive fishing and camaraderie.

Harms and Kruse have won the catch-record-release event three times and finished second a couple of other years, so the bar was high. Conditions were challenging with stiff winds and sunny skies.

Using heavy jigs (1/2- and 5/8-ounce) in bright colors like chartreuse and orange, plus an occasional crankbait, we gradually put together a decent five-walleye limit, but it included three 21 1/2-inch fish until Kruse put a 26-inch upgrade in the boat early in the afternoon. That put our best five at 116 1/2 inches, and it put us in contention.

In the end, it took a 30 3/4inch giant to beat us as we settled for another second place finish behind previous champs Joe Busch and John Nesse.

A little more than a week later in mid-October, Harms invited me up again. The temperature was cooler in the upper 30s when we launched, but the fishing was hot. With more cloud cover, darker colors like red, blue, purple and black were the ticket as Harms and I landed 39 walleyes measuring at least 15 inches. Five were at 24 inches or slightly larger, but none passed the 25-inch mark.

Another week and a few degrees later, bigger fish began to show up more consistently. Harms got out by himself for a day that produced 34 walleyes up to 28 1/2 inches, and it has largely been that way since.

It looks like the November calendar is filling up. There's that drywalling project I've been working on for a month, Thanksgiving, a couple of birthdays and a wedding.

What if Walleye Tim calls?

This Mississippi River Pool 2 walleye fell to a bucktail jig fished by Tim Harms recently. (Doug Newhoff photos/correspondent)

Tim Harms shows a pair of golden Mississippi River walleyes after he and Doug Newhoff doubled during a recent day on the water.

Doug Newhoff put this nice walleye in the boat during a mid-October outing on Pool 2 of the Mississippi River. (Tim Harms)