19th Annual Reel Country Classic Walleye Tournament on Otter Tail Lake
By Erik Osberg
We fished in the 19th Annual Reel Country Classic Walleye Tournament on Otter Tail Lake last weekend. This was the 5th(?) time i’ve fished it with Randin Olson of Lock Jaw Guide Service. We’ve had a couple top tens over the years. Out of 80 boats that isn’t so bad. Our goal this year was to change things up a bit and try to target bigger fish. It worked pretty good on Day 1 (Friday). We caught 25 fish and had 2 nice overs (23.5 & 25). Finished in 19th day 1 but were only a half a pound out of the top 10. We started Day 2 with optimism. Our adjustments had worked and we just needed to keep at it. The wind was HOWLING on Saturday. Spot #1 was a bust. We made a big run to spot #2. We had our card full by 11:09 with a 24.5 as our biggest fish. We needed some upgrades, but had 5 hours to do it. We were feeling pretty good. Just needed 1 big fish. The next 4 hours were rough. Randin was workin’ hard running the boat, back trolling in 3 foot waves sucks. The waves just kept getting bigger. We tried a couple more moves, but we COULD NOT CATCH A FISH. We did get 2 smaller fish, but by 3pm we had caught a total of 8 walleyes. The mood in the boat wasn’t great. We could feel it slipping away and the weather was taking it’s tool. We made one more move to get to calmer water and try a new spot. We were due back at the dock at 4:15pm. At 3:30pm I got bit. I got a good hook set, and I was reeling in a bigger fish. The fish came boat side and we saw it was a nice walleye. I’m guessing mid 20 incher. I started to lift it into the net, it took a run. I started to lift it again and poof, it was gone. Randin took a swing deep with the net and we watched it swim away. We were crushed. We sat in silence for the next 10-15 minutes. I remember thinking that was our chance. There was no way I’d get another fish like that with so little time left. I angrily threw a large jig & plastic to blow off steam. It had worked yesterday. So why not. Eventually i went back to a minnow.
At 3:45pm i got bit again. Got a good hook set and was into another bigger fish. We had caught a ton of biggish pike, so you don’t get too excited until you see the fish. When we saw that walleye, we both kinda jumped. A got this one up to the boat as quickly as I could. And Randin scooped it up. High 5’s all around. We upgraded to a 26 inch walleye with less than 30 minutes to go. We knew we weren’t going to win, but a top 10 was sure possible. Long story longer, we finished 6th on day 2. And we finished 7th overall for the two days. I’ll take that. Huge thanks to Randin once again. Looking forward to the 20th Annual Reel Country Classic Walleye Tournament on Otter Tail Lake.
If you are going out to look for walleyes they were relating to breaks more than flats. That being said, we caught fish as shallow as 8 feet, and as deep as 14. A spot tail shiner on a 1/16 or 1/8 oz. jig. I caught a few good fish pitching a 1/2 oz. lead head darter jig with a fluke plastic. Live bait rigging minnows worked as well. We were moving about 0.5-1.0mph ”
