Sheldon Hatch

The opening tournament of the Quinte Fishing Series 2010 season took place at the George St. ramps in Belleville on Sunday, May 30th with the only walleye event of the season. 50 teams were registered for the event which started with calm winds and waters at the 7:00 a.m. blast-off time. Anglers fished from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and were allowed to bring in their best four (4) walleye caught during the day.

Early on, the leading weight hovered at just over the 13 lb. mark and tournament officials thought that this might hold up. This was not the case though as two thirds of the way into the weigh-in, Sheldon Hatch from Perth and partner, Gord Schultz of Smith Falls, took a commanding lead and it was never challenged. With a great four fish weight of 18.65 lbs, they blew the rest of the field away by three pounds! For their win, Hatch and Schultz took home a cheque for $3,000.00 plus two gift bags compliments of Mark’s Work Warehouse and a $50.00 Gift Certificate from Kelsey’s/Montana’s, Belleville. These two anglers, who only fish the walleye circuits in both Canada and the northern U.S., also had the “big fish” of the day. Their walleye of 8.05 lbs. earned them the Canadian Tire “Big Fish” Award which included two $75.00 gift cards compliments of Canadian Tire – Belleville and the “pool” money of $960.00 cash! Our thanks to the McCullough’s at Canadian Tire for taking on the Big Fish Prize for 2010.

Tournament time is here again and I have been very busy pre-fishing. Spent lots of time on Bay of Quinte and have dialed in a pretty good Pattern that should hold for a few weeks.
Spring is a great time to hunt for walleye as they can be found in all sorts of locations and you get to use every technique from vertical jigging to trolling with offshore planer boards. So far this spring I have taken walleye on all sorts of techniques, but bottom bouncing spinners and crawlers has been the top producer.

Looking forward to the first tourney this weekend out of Deseronto. Well time to get back into the swing of things – Tourney Time.

Fish On.

The walleye opening weekend was kicked off with an ezelo walleye institute on West Lake and the Bay of Quinte. My tournament partner Gord Schultz and West Lake Willows owner Scott Walcott walked the class through all the techniques involved in catching old marble eyes. A few of the walleye from Saturday made for a great fish fry on Sunday before heading out in the boats for the afternoon session. The weather held considering the hostile forecast and winds in the area. The fishing was a typical spring bite on spinners and crawlers pulled behind in-line offshore planer boards and bottom bouncers.

The average depth was the 10 to 15 foot range and if you added new weed growth to the mix you increased your odds of hooking up with walleye. A strange coincident over the weekend was the colour of choice. Both West Lake and Bay of Quinte walleye seemed to like blades or small cranks in silver with blues in the mix. The surface temps where around the 60F mark so a quicker paced troll often produced walleye. Depending on the light and area you could go from about 1.3 to 2 mph to entice some walleye action. Water levels are down this year so you need to be careful when working shallows, at one launch I could not get my Tundra off the trailer.

Back out on Quinte again this week and will report how the spring fish are setting up for the season.