Wacky Willard 5-6-22 (With Video)

[TubeDude]

I’m about ready to give up on Willard.  Originally planned to hit it on Wednesday…then Thursday.  Weather forecrash kept changing and was still iffy for Friday but I decided to go for it anyway.  Shoulda stood in bed.
 
Drove through the open gate at the south marina just after 6 am.  A couple of boats on trailers just sitting there and not prepping for launch.  Forecrash was for light breezes from the SW.  But there were whitecaps on the lake and a 15 to 20 mph “zephyr” blowing out of the NW and right up into the channel.  Gee.  That’s the first time the weather folks ever missed.  Ha.
 
I figured (hoped) it would lay down after daybreak so I leisurely prepped my tube for launch.  Air temp and water temp were a tie score…both 54 at launch.  The air warmed up to just over 70 and the water temp topped 60 by noon departure.

I’d like to think my mama din’t raise no fools.  But I put that silly notion to rest by launching my tube and powering out to the marina entrance into the main lake.  Some 3’ waves pushed me back inside.  So I decided to fish in the channel until Mama Nature got back on her meds and settled down.  But several trips up and down the channel showed few fish on sonar and produced nary a sniff on anything I offered.
 
Finally, about 8:30 I could detect a decrease in the steady wind.  And the waves were no longer crashing on the rocks at the channel entrance.  So I pushed out into the main lake.  Lots of rocking and rolling still, and the bottom on my sonar screen looked like a vicious saw blade from the up and down motion.
 
There were at least a dozen boaters that had pulled into the launch area but had kept their craft on trailers up to this point.  Now they all got launched and powered off to distant hot spots.  I could hear the roar/wham cadence as they crashed over the waves. 
 
Fortunately, the wind and waves gradually diminished and I was able to work a succession of worm harnesses, crank baits and plastics…through all depths from about 4 feet out to almost 13 feet.  Saw very little on sonar and even less on my line.  Had hoped to find a couple of stray wipers or walleyes but it was looking grim.  Was starting to smell the striped kitty by 10 am. 
 
Soooooo…I broke out the deadly fligs and chub meat.  But in spite of my optimism I got no love in the previously productive depths and areas.  Water temps were starting to go up…about 1 degree every half hour.  When they reached 57…and after I had allowed my craft to cruise out into over 12 feet of water…I went bendo on my first kitty.
 
For the next hour and a half I stayed out in 12 foot depths and managed to bring another five or six cats to net.  Got almost all of them on the tandem flig rig…with an orange tiger flig on the bottom and a blue back silver flig two feet up.  Got fish on both.  In fact, one of those silly kitties ate both jigs on the same rig.  Fished a succession of other colors and rigs on my second rod but only had a few pop and drop hits.  Even the normally deadly pink tiger color failed to get a hook up.
 
Hit the ramp about noon.  There were a few bank tanglers fishing inside the channel.  Talked to one of them and he said they had been catching a few wipers.  Also said there were some crappies showing inside the south marina at a couple of places.  But two of the boaters I talked to as they were coming in said they had caught nothing.  At least I got to bend my stick and stretch my string…even if it was only on some catfish.  I got no pride.


LINK TO VIDEO