Steve Sarley: Recalling my musky tourney experience

Talking about fishing tournaments the past couple of weeks had me dredging my cranium’s hard drive to recall some personal memories. I’d like to tell you about one of my all-time favorite tournament experiences.

I had signed up to fish as a co-angler in the season’s opening event for the RCL circuit on the Illinois River out of Spring Valley in April 2003. It was a walleye tournament and drew the biggest names in pro walleye fishing. Why I thought I should be there is beyond me as I look back.

The pros would be fishing for a first-place purse of $80,000. The pressure on a co-angler to contribute is huge. Even if you can’t contribute to the weight of fish in the livewell, you better make sure you don’t do anything to harm the pros’ chances. Screwing up on netting a fish might cause a pro to lose thousands of dollars.

The first day, I drew a pro from Wisconsin who shall remain nameless. He had pre-fished the river for a few days but told me his fortunes had not been good. When we hit the water, I could understand why that was so.

We pulled orange jigs with crawlers and couldn’t get a fish to bite. He was fishing too fast, letting the current control his boat rather than him fighting the current to keep his presentation vertical. I knew we were moving too fast for fish but co-anglers are not allowed to give tips or suggestions. They have to remain silent.

After a half-day of no bites, I couldn’t control myself. I told him we were going too fast and, to boot, I told him we should be using chartreuse jig heads. His response was, “I’m the pro here, and I’ve been fishing this speed and using orange jigs for the past week while I was pre-fishing.” I asked him what kind of success he had found, and he told me, “Not too good. A lot like today.”

I was speechless.

Suddenly, he told me to start tying Rapalas onto our lines. We were going to troll. I was amazed. We had been jigging for hours on hard bottoms. Now he wanted to troll crankbaits over a section of the river that had a bottom littered with trees and branches. I told him it was a bad idea, but he insisted it would work.

I kid you not, in 15 minutes, we had snagged six times and lost six lures when our lines broke. No fish, of course, just lost time working on our knot-tying skills. We went back to jigging, to no avail.

At day’s end, we had caught absolutely zero fish. That was quite the embarrassing weigh-in to go through. There was a grand total of 165 two-man teams in the tournament. Only seven teams had the dubious result of catching no fish at all.

They pulled partners names for the second day, and I found I was paired with Ron Seelhoff.

Seelhoff, a crop duster by trade from Colorado, was the all-time money leader in professional walleye fishing. He was a legend in the sport and also was known to be one of the crankiest anglers to ever pick up a walleye rod.

Seelhoff was known for being the guy who was always accompanied by his two pet Schnauzers in his fishing boat. You’d think a guy who fished with his two beloved little yippy “foo foo” dogs would be a sweet and lovable old man. That was so far from the truth. Seelhoff was more like the old coot who kept your ball when it flew into his backyard.

My partner laughed and told me, “Good luck with Ron. He won’t say a word to you all day, and he’ll eat you alive if you do anything wrong in his boat.”

I was totally scared.

When I got to the hotel, I picked up the phone and called Seelhoff to introduce myself and to make arrangements for Day 2 of the tournament. He hadn’t had a very good Day 1 and was mired far down the pack in the standings.

I said hello, and Seelhoff responded with, “Oh, great! I get stuck with one of the only people in the tournament who doesn’t know how to catch even one stinking walleye! What the hell! My luck is going from bad to worse.”

My arms wouldn’t stop shaking as I told Seelhoff that I was looking forward to meeting him at 5:30 the next morning for breakfast, but that’s a tale for next week.

FISHING REPORT

Northern Illinois: Dave Kranz from Dave’s Bait, Tackle and Taxidermy in Crystal Lake reports: “The dams at McHenry, Algonquin and Carpentersville are once again flooded. Floating debris and high muddy waters make up a recipe for tough fishing.

“McHenry County Conservation District’s Lake Atwood in the Hollows provides bank or nonmotorized-boat fishing (canoes, kayaks, etc. can be used here). None are provided; you must bring your own. Bluegill, bass and catfish can be caught here.

“Crystal Lake has Vulcan Lake at the Three Oaks Recreation Area. They have closed the boat rental for the season. Bank fishing is permitted up until the ice arrives. For more info on Northern Illinois fishing, call 815-455-2040 for an updated report.”

Fox Chain O' Lakes: Chris Taurisano of T-Bone Guide Service (www.tboneguideservice.com – 630-330-9090) sends word, "Panfishing has been very good as of late. For crappies, minnows and plastics are best. You can find fish both deep and shallow. Muskies and walleyes have been tough but will pick up after turnover."

• Steve Sarley writes about the outdoors for Shaw Media. Write to him at sarfishing@yahoo.com. Steve does a weekly podcast about fishing called "WeFishASA." You can find it at www.wefishasa.com.