2008 Year in Review by Fisherman Bill Anderson

Well, the 2008 walleye tournament season is now over. In the last few weeks I fished our little Harlan Anglers Walleye club tournament at Harlan and the NWA Championship Tourney at Lewis and Clark. I am sad to say that I did not do well in either of the tourneys but I still managed to have a great time in both. My partner and I ended up in a tie for 8th place in the NWA circuit. Hopefully that will be good enough to qualify us for Cabela's NTC Championship tournament for the 5th time in 7 years. 2008 had to be the year of the crankbait for my partner, Dave Rosenthal, and me. Except for the first tournament of the year at Calamus we trolled crankbaits all year. We are usually pretty diversified but this year especially the crankbait was the answer for us. We used many different brands of cranks this year but our hottest had to be the #5 jointed shad rap. They worked from spring to fall and from reservoirs to rivers cold water to hot water. We just changed speeds from slow in spring to fast in summer and back to slow in fall and they produced fish for us almost every time.

As most of you know, it has really been a tough year for walleye at Harlan. We had good numbers of fish at the dam for the spawn in April and still caught a few in early spring and then it pretty much quit. I still don't believe that the fish weren't biting all summer. In my opinion, it was just a case of the same numbers of fish in twice the amount of water and 100 times more habitat for them to hide in. The bait fish (shad) are very plentiful and are in every area of the lake so the eyes definitely did not have to roam around to find food. On a positive note, there were three nice keeper walleye caught during our fall tourney. That was fantastic compared to all summer. There wasn't any main pattern though. One fish was caught spooning around the Patterson Harbor area, one fish was caught anchored and using a jig and crawler in the south side pipeline area and one fish was caught along with several short fish by trolling jointed #5 shad raps with snap weights across the humps in prairie dog bay. Another positive for the lake is the white bass population. It has been incredible for most of the year and with the water level, I don't see that changing. Another positive is that while spooning for walleye this fall along the dam, I have caught some small crappie. This is very exciting to me because in a couple of years the crappie population will be great in the lake again and I love to listen to a Nebraska football game in the fall while catching big crappies along the dam. In 2009, the walleye success should be a little better. Some of the habitat will disappear (hopefully from the ice cover) thus making the shallow hideouts a little more accessible. I still don't think that it will be a harvest king at the lake though. It is going to take another year or so for the walleyes to grow to legal size and then look out! Next year, I think we will be catching a lot of short fish, so please take care of them and release them safely. If one swallows the hook just cut it off instead of pulling it out. The fish will dissolve the hook and remain healthy. Indeed, the outlook for Harlan is very positive. It won't be long and you won't want to leave the lake! I know I won't!!

Now, is the year over for fishing? Oh heck no! Or, at least I hope not. Weather permitting, I am going to try to go back to Lewis and Clark one more time in the next couple of weeks. During the NWA tourney, we caught some really fat sauger along the drop offs just outside the South Dakota State Park Marina. I want some more of that action. I also hope to get back to Harlan a time or two and at least one more trip to Johnson. I will let you know if I have any luck.

I hope you have enjoyed my reports this year. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures though, hopefully I will have more next year. Please thank Mick, Ryan and the Buzz's crew if you enjoy reading these reports. They are providing this for your information and enjoyment and I really do enjoy sharing the information with you. Keep an eye on the site and I will keep updating you on my experiences as long as the weather permits.

Happy Fishing!

-Bill

P.S. The Hottest lake of the year goes to Johnson Lake!