Week 740: BIG CHANGES To Walleye Fishing Tournaments

On this week’s podcast, we’re talking about some big changes to walleye fishing tournaments. New National Walleye Tour Tournament Director Eric Naig joins us and answers some questions people have about the future of walleye tournaments. He tells us about the changes to live bait and artificial bait restrictions, what lakes they’re fishing, and some slot limit changes. Eric also tells us how they’re partnering with the Minnesota DNR to do some research on walleyes. Bret and Dan have a few special guests in studio, and they start the show discussing the late migration and the infamous Armistice Day Blizzard. Joe Henry tells us how his deer hunting season is going so far.

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I want to talk about some of the changes. I don’t know if you can talk
about some of the horizon oil changes that might be coming in a future
or not yet, but I’d be curious to find out what those are. But let’s
start with with the news. The schedule. The schedule came out. And,
there’s three Minnesota dates basically on that schedule, which I was
kind of surprised to see. Eric. Yeah. It’s, it’s great to be back in
the, you know, the home of, of walleye fishing, the epicenter of walleye
fishing. So, yeah, there’s there’s one on the Mississippi River. So
maybe we can call that of Minnesota tournament. It’s it’s Minnesota.
Wisconsin. There’s one at Leech Lake which we’re very excited about. And
then the championship is actually up at Lake of the woods out of
Warroad. So yes, three, three events will be held in the state of
Minnesota this year. There’s A couple of other things we noticed on
that, live bait, coin flip. But I think more importantly is, there’s an
Arkansas walleye tournament which people in the industry aren’t too
probably too surprised about it, but it’s you don’t hear about Arkansas
that often when it comes to walleye fishing. Yeah, it’s been since I
believe in the 2005 or 2008 is the last time the that tour level while I
tournament went to Arkansas. So Norfolk Lake, we’re going to Bull
Shoals. But that whole, that whole system, they’ve had walleyes there
for many, many years. Fishing is excellent. And I’m excited for the
challenge that, that will give our touring anglers to go down to
someplace. Many of them I was I would bet most of them haven’t been to
to start the season off. And it’s early March 11th and 12th. In
Arkansas, the host is going to be Mountain Home. It’s a beautiful place
down there along the white River and fired up to see what those guys
could figure out. A lot of guys here will be ice fishing, and you guys
will be in boats catching walleyes down there and in our concise. And
then, there’s been a lot of Great Lakes events in recent years. You’re
not completely getting away from the Great Lakes this year. No. Not
completely. We’ll go to Saginaw Bay, you know, part of Lake Huron in in
June. So, you know, the Great Lakes are obviously an important fishery.
Lake Erie is one of the best walleye fisheries in the in the world. And
and we’ll continue to do those. But what I really liked about this
year’s schedule is the variety. So we have a reservoir. We have natural
lake, river, great lake. And then, you know, I would argue the best
fishing lake for big walleyes. And in the world at Lake of the woods, to
finish it all up with Lake of the woods is, is pretty amazing. Some
might even say the walleye capital of the world. Possibly. Right, I, I
would, I would agree with that. I drive by that side very many times a
year. So much fun up there. You know, a couple of things that stood out
is there’s going to be some changes on whether live bait or not can be
used at some of these tournaments, some of these dates. Yeah, that, that
that was an exciting change for me. You know, I was in some of the first
ones that when I back when I worked for Berkley and Pure Fishing, we, we
had actually promoted having no live bait tournaments and sponsored
them. And I was in on kind of the back end of that too, and it really
created a lot of new techniques. For walleye fishing. And I’m excited to
see what the guys in the anglers come up with when, when those
tournaments are, are live bait is not allowed. You know, the last couple
of years, if you look at the, you know, the winning results and top ten
results, a lot of them have been won with a jig and and Nightcrawler,
which is a great way to catch Wallace. And and so now this will force
them to, you know, maybe get out a little bit out of the comfort zone
that they have with live bait. And, you know, teach us some new ways to
catch them. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m interested to see what techniques are
used. You know, if, if, if trolling comes back more into play, if it
still remains, you know, forward facing sonar dominated. But I think
without having live bait, it opens up some more, some more different
techniques. And again, variety is a big thing. So if we go through the
schedule, Brett Bull Shoals is the first tournament. March 11th and
12th. Live bait will be permitted on the Mississippi River. We’re going
to take off out of Welch Treasure Island area May 13th and 14th. That is
going to be no lie by allowed artificial lures only when we go to
Saginaw Bay. June 11th and or 10th and 11th, that will be artificial
lures only. And then Leech Lake in August. August 20th of the 21st live
bait will be permitted there. A cool thing that that we’re going to do
at the at Lake of the woods at the Championship is prior to the event,
we will do a coin toss because, you know, half the events going in,
we’re live bait and half or no live bait. So we’re going to do a coin
toss. And then it’ll either be one day of live bait, two without, or
it’ll be two days with live bait one without, depending on what the coin
toss is. Man, that’s kind of wild that a three day event and you have to
change up, you know, at least one of the days you have to fish
differently than the other two. Dan, imagine if you were out fishing and
you found a hot bite and they were they were eating a jig and a crawler
or whatever the case, they were eating something and you’re like, okay,
if once tournament day comes or maybe this is the first day of the
tournament, you can go back to those fish, but you can’t use the same
presentation. Well, we’ve all run into this situation before you get on
a hot Nightcrawler bite and you run out of crawlers and you break out
the, you know, the Berkeley gulp crawlers or whatever it is I, candy
crawlers or Uncle Josh’s pork. And especially on Lake of the woods.
Those fish are usually pretty friendly with that, but I’d have to
imagine they’re pretty excited to not have to go by Willow cats on the
yeah, in Mississippi River. Save a little bit of cash because I know
that’s, a lot of phone calls and a lot of cash going out to buy some
Willow cat, so that’ll save a few bucks, I suppose. I’m I’m I’m actually
pretty excited about that. Selfishly, too, because that I don’t have to
worry about them bringing them back and forth across the border and all
of that, all that monkey business that goes on so selfishly, that one
and the Mississippi River and, you know, and and, I mean, I can envision
these guys throwing crank baits on wing dams and catching those big
fish. So it’ll be a it’ll be an interesting challenge. I’m surprised you
want to take on the role of tournament director these days. You know, we
we run just a small one up on the rainy River. It’s just a fish donkey.
We we purposely keep the entry limit small because we want to discourage
any sort of nefarious activity, cheating, etc. that might take place.
And you look at weights and fish and even Darren Trost, who’s run these
fish donkey tournaments forever. He’s getting out of it just because of
the drama. I mean, the end. There’s never. I mean, never had to deal
with any drama, you know, and tournament tournament fishing at all. And
there’s always something, you know, no matter how often you might feel
like you got your your eyes dotted and your t’s cross, something always
comes up. So when you when you’re planning for this stuff, Eric, I mean,
talk about like, the preparation how often and you do have a board that
you work with to I’m sure that it’s kind of nice to have some other
people to help you work through some of these things. But, I mean, you
have to think about every scenario that might present itself in this
location. And then we go here and we’re talking, you might have borders,
we might have border waters, or you might have, you know, bait
restriction, or you might have limits and slot limits and things like
that. I mean, you have to think about every situation that may come up
that hasn’t been thought of yet. Yeah. And really the key to that is
communication, not only communication with the DNR, you know, that
provide us permits for these tournaments, but also with the anglers. You
know, my mind doesn’t work the way that I don’t I don’t have a mind of
a, I guess a mind of a, a rule bender. I’m a rule follower. But and that
and my, my job is to enforce the rules. So I talk to some people that,
that, have some ideas and provide input, and then you do the best of
your ability to create the rule that, is, number one, you can enforce
it. You know, there’s some rules that you can’t enforce. So why create
the rule? Yeah. Also, you need to make sure that you follow the state
regulations. That’s that’s a key thing. But I guarantee you, Brett,
there’s going to be something that comes up this year that hasn’t been
written in this, you know. Yeah. 30 page rule book that we have. And
we’ll add it to it and move forward. One thing that that I’m, you know,
pleased or excited about is with a, with a, a hunter bolt field of the
same anglers at each event. They’ll, they’ll be there’ll be some
self-policing going on because when the same people show up all the
time, you know, that that will, that will help, that will help the whole
situation. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. There’s going to be things
that come up and we will treat people the same, will treat people fair,
and we’ll follow the rules to the best of our ability. Are you going to
allow anglers to go ask other anglers for nightcrawlers if they run out?
I know that was an interesting one that came up last year. Yeah, that
that was interesting. No, no part of the one one of the rules is you can
you can talk to your fellow competitors. Not after the tournaments over,
not during tournament hours. So the only people you can talk to about
fishing locations and fishing presentations are the people in your boat,
which is you and your you and your co-anchor. If you’re a pro so you’re
not allowed to pull up and ask for nightcrawlers or minnows or a bait or
say, hey, are you catching them on this point? Or how deep are you
fishing? Or, you know, those kind of things, you certainly can say,
hello, how are you? Those those type of conversations. But no, you’re
not allowed to speak to anyone about fishing locations during the
tournament. Now, after weigh in, you can you can speak to your fellow
competitors and compare notes. And you know that that’s that’s
allowable, but no outside information. There was one thing when it came
to, like slot limits that I hadn’t heard yet that you and I talked about
yesterday when we were talking about this podcast today. And when it
comes to some overs, why don’t you to explain how that’s going to work
this year? Yeah. So, you know, a great example would be, Leech Lake for,
for that, for that event. And, and we’re working very closely with the
Northwest Fisheries folks. They’re actually here in Bemidji. So it’s
been been a great relationship for me to, to foster. But for example,
there, with two anglers in the boat, you would be allowed to fish over
the slot, which is a 20 inch slot limit. So our our rules are going to
be that you can only have one per boat. So the daily, the, the
tournament limit will be five fish. You’ll be allowed one over 20in. And
the rest of them have to be in a slot. And we we set a 15 inch minimum.
So it’s 15 to 20. It would be, would be the slot for that particular
tournament. And, and it was a, it was a, it was a, a conscious decision
talking with the DNR folks because then, you know, we have one big fish
that we want to make sure that gets live released. Versus two. So I
think working together with the DNR, in all at all of these locations is
a very important part of this because us as an organization. Me
personally, when we when we come in to a community, we want to make sure
we leave it, you know, as good or better than, than when we came in. A
big part of that is, is releasing these fish so they can be caught
again. I’ve been very vocal about it on this show. I’ve told you my
opinion on on way in tournaments versus catch record release. I’m a fan
of the catch record release, but I will say I give you a lot of credit
for what you’re going to be doing. Unleash, particularly where you’re
working with the DNR there on the fish that you’re releasing. Explain
what you guys are going to be doing. Yeah. So we we worked out a program
with the Minnesota DNR that the DNR is going to take possession of the
fish after win, and we’ll likely lend them our release boat. We have an
official release boat that’s that’s pretty high tech. But they they’ll
have boats there. And so as soon as the fish are weighed in, the DNR
will take possession of them. And they are going to do a study. On
release mortality. So they’ll they’ll take take some fish, use it, get a
little bit of data on that, you know, so they’ll tag them, release them
back into the lake and, you know, we’ll work together and and see what
the data says. And so it’s exciting to, to create that partnership with
them to, to do a study, you know, to see how, you know, to see how a
live release tournament may affect the body of water. So I’m really
excited about that partnership. I think that’s a great idea. If you’re
going to be doing these, weigh ins. And it’s and to be fair, be honest,
you know, they do it up in the vanity up in Saskatchewan and there’s a
Saskatchewan. I’m trying to remember the name of it here. I’m trying to
look it up, but I can’t remember. It’s a one sport fish research group.
Oh yeah. On the at the vanity. Yeah. They I can’t remember with a group
that does the research, but they take those fish that are weighed in
then and they tag them. And they found that some have been caught.
Wasn’t there one walleye had been caught, I don’t know, 5 or 6 times or
something in the same tournament. Yeah. And weighed back in and whatnot.
And I know they did that on Leech with the Bassmaster opens. When they
were there I would maybe guess they did it for the college tournament
this summer too. But I mean, what a brilliant way to get their hands on
a bunch of fish to do some science and learn something from it. And why
not? It’s pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was interesting. Mark was
telling me that I asked him about that Bassmaster study and, and they
had a tag turned in like a day after they released the fish. So, yeah.
So those fish are, are good to go and be able to be able to be caught
again. And, you know, it was like what Brett and I were talking
yesterday. You know I I’m the the choices are alive. You know in our
format at the end of the choices are we’re alive release tournament with
a study with the DNR or a kill tournament. And I’m way happier with
being even if, you know, if we let 50% of the fish go that, you know,
I’m happy that there’s going to be 50% versus 100% killed. So I think
that, I think in, in, in the NWA format, which is a live way and release
format, I think this is a good compromise. And and again, I’m happy to
be able to work, you know, we’re happy to be able to work with the DNR
and, and give them some data to. Well, and I think what a lot of people
forget, especially if you don’t know Minnesota regs, you know, if you
watch in to be the last few years, a lot of these Great Lakes
tournaments, you’re bringing in 50 pounds of walleye. And if you think
of those 50 pounds, you know, 510 pounders or five nine pounders,
whatever, do the math, whatever it might be, big fish are all dying. It
looks not great. But in Minnesota, when you can only have one over 20,
it’s just going to be a lot of eaters that if they don’t make it their
eater size anyways, you don’t want to waste fish, I know that, but it’s
not like we’re going to be going, or these guys are going to Leech Lake
or any of the lakes here in Minnesota, and just bringing in 100 pounds
of walleyes in two days, and they’re all dying. So that’s, that’s, you
know, you guys, aren’t you? You’re bound by state rules to you’re not
immune from those. So everything that we do as anglers that you guys
have to do too. So I think that should alleviate some concern. The
Saskatchewan Sport Fish Research Group, that’s their Facebook page. And
this here on October 1st, they posted that they tagged a walleye at the
Vanity Cup in October of 2023. At that time it was 29.7in. That fish was
just caught again in Tobin this week. Well, this is at the beginning of
October at 31.5. So, three years later, after being caught and released
in the Vanity Cup 29.7. So it grew over an inch and a half still, after
being under 30, made it up to 31.5, three years after being caught in
the tournament and just an ounce under 12 pounds. So, you know, I
probably still be a proponent. You know, the catch record release is
just so easy, it seems like. And it’s easy on the fishery. But, you
know, obviously some of these fish do survive. So and the fact that you
can get some research out of it, I always thought that’s why I followed
these guys. And we fished Tobin a little bit, but that’s why we follow
these guys, because I think that research is so fascinating and be able
to partner up with the tournament, to be able to get that information
is, is perfect. So the fact that you guys are going to do that is great.
And when you when it comes to slots, obviously Minnesota has their own
rules and and and the different lakes. But Bull Shoals there’s a they
have an 18 inch minimum on that lake. Yep an 18 inch minimum on that
lake. So there’ll be some there’ll be some nice weights coming out of
there. And that is a that is a no call, fishery in the state of
Missouri. So we’ll, we’ll have a no call tournament there. You know
Mississippi River is, is is similar to, to Leech. There’s it’s a four
fish limit with one over. Saginaw Bay has no has no slot limit. So, you
know, everyone’s different. It’s like you said, why would you want to be
a tournament director? Well, you learn a lot about regulations
throughout the country. Yeah, well, and, you know, and just, you know,
for the sake of, of transparency, I mean, we’ve had a few of the
tournament anglers from the NWA come on here and vent some of their
frustrations with the way the tournament was. I don’t know if it was the
schedule or I can’t remember the exact concern. Some of it was the
schedule and the locations and things like that. What are you hearing?
Obviously you’re you’re probably trying to address those concerns. What
are you hearing from the anglers, particularly now that the schedule has
come out? What have you heard from the guys? It has been overwhelmingly
positive. Which which makes me happy. Both. You know, the the two
things. Obviously the schedule is going to be something that you’re
always a little bit concerned about. But the other thing that I didn’t
know how people would react to is the bait or no lie bait. Yeah. You
know, program. And and it was very well received. So I’m excited that
the anglers are, are ready to move forward with with this. I think they
see the potential for, you know, product development. I’ve heard some
whispers that people are working on some new lures that, you know, might
help a win tournaments, which is cool. So, yeah, it’s been those lures
called what? What were those? Let me get a pen. You know, there is
something so big for that. Live baits obviously so important for the
fishing industry here in Minnesota. But tournaments you look at the bass
world tournaments drive tackle sales. And when all that tackle sales for
a while I tournament are a jig and a crawler. That’s not really great
for the industry and great for the fishing economy. We can get some more
baits pushed and show anglers. Hey, a hair jig still works. So this new
whatever. You know I it’s fascinating what people smarter than me think
of to catch a fish. But we can show that they work because you’re not
tournament anglers not going to put it in their hands if it’s not going
to cash them a check. So it’s it’s pretty tried and true that if they’re
using it there’s probably something to it. So I wonder how many how many
Wally’s will be weighed in off at this year or off an urgent. That’s a
great question. It might be a few. That’s hilarious. Well either way.
Good luck with everything kicking off in March. New season of the WTA.
And then as far as, like, the coverage of the tournament, any changes on
how people are going to be able to follow along? Yeah, it’s pretty
exciting for the fans. They’re going to they’re going to have live
stream starting from Wayne, are starting from take off all the way
through when they’ll have some live streaming going out on the water as
well. Commentary around it. One of the coolest things, though, that I’m,
I’m excited about is they’ll have tracking systems. So through through
the app that they use, it’s fishing chaos as the name of it. But through
that, the anglers are able to to upload their catch throughout the day.
So if you, you know, if you’re familiar with like watching bass track or
live score tracker in the bass world, there’ll be something similar to
that. For anglers to, you know, for fans to sit and watch throughout the
day and watch their favorite angers and, and see how many fish they have
in the live. Well, estimated weights, you know, it’s it’s, it’s not the
official wait until weigh in, but but there will be a live coverage of
the fish catches throughout the day. So I think that that will, that
will create some more fan engagement. Throughout the, throughout the
tournament, we’re trying to, you know, start over the event at the same
time throughout the year. So they do some appointment viewing and, and
they, you know, there was a they did a test last year on, I believe 3 or
4 of the events doing live stream and they got good numbers. And then
many of the NWT anglers, are doing their own live stream too, which is,
which is legal. Any any output media is okay. You just can’t get any
input media while you’re on the water. So, I think that live coverage,
is, is really going to be cool. For next year. And then, you know,
obviously they have the TV show, which has been a top ten ranked program
on, on Pursuit Channel and, and some other channels out there streaming,
streaming wise, it’s been it’s been a top, top ten aired program for
over the last ten years. So it it they do a great job with the
post-production as well. That’ll continue the way it’s been. Yep. That
will continue the way it’s been. And then so if we’re tracking along
does that does that ever go dark or anything to build a little drama or
is it will it just stay current until way in? That’s a great question.
We’ve had some discussions around that. It’s too big to be determined.
You know, people have talked about, well, shut it off at two, so you
have to come back and watch the way in. Yeah. I don’t know the answer to
that one yet, Bret, but it has been it has been discussed. What do you
think we should do? Well, that’s a good question. You know what we do
the for our tournament, we do the fish donkey thing. In the first year,
we didn’t go dark at all. And Darren Amundsen and Bonnie, his wife who
run fish. Not like you got to go. You gotta go dark on the on, you know,
on the second day at noon and and make, build suspense, make people come
out to the to the presentation, you know, and and it made a lot of
sense. So we’ve done that every year since and I don’t know I think it’s
kind of fun to it’s well and it’s different for the fish donkey deal.
Because those are the official weights when you’re looking at the board.
Whereas with bass track or this it’s going to be a little different. You
know, it, it might be interesting to see the first tournament, see who’s
scales working and who’s not, like, oh, Eric McCoy scales 3 pounds off
or something. And you know, so there’s some discrepancy there. Like the
people have a pretty good idea, but you still don’t know for sure with
you don’t really scales a little different. And or I’ve heard buddy’s
trying to do bass striker. I had a buddy trying to do bass track and he
didn’t quite understand how, you know, you text in your weights to get
it to work. So at one point he had he had like five fish for 5 pounds,
and then he caught a six pounder and said, oh, he had five, five fish
for 6 pounds because he thought there was somebody back at a studio,
like adding them all up for him. Instead of that, he had to text in his
hotel weight. So you might have some of that too, if I don’t know if
that’s exactly how you guys do it. But so you should watch the way in
anyways, is what I’m saying, because people get distracted on the water
trying to upload weights. Yeah, I mean, if I was fishing in the
tournament, I wouldn’t take time to weigh the fish. I would just, you
know, measure it to make sure it’s legal and then throw it in, live well
and tell if if I entered it or, you know, tell my partner it’s a good
co-anchor that one ways like two and a half pounds or whatever it is.
It’s a good call. That was. Yeah, I think, you know, and I think
everybody will do it differently. Some people will want to know and
weigh them and in lie a little bit and, you know, sandbag and that’ll be
fun though. It’ll be fun. I could see guys. Yeah. Putting in the wrong
way. It’s just to make people that could be a part of the strategy. Are
you gonna allow anglers to look at it during the day? No. No you it’s
only it’s only output. So yeah. But everybody else will be able to see
it. Yeah yeah yeah. And then when, when they get you know after the
obviously after the tournament’s over, they can or you know, the dam’s
over then they, they can look at it. Well obviously those anglers,
especially if they’re live streaming, they probably have Starlink in
their boats. Now they have access to the internet. How do they. How do
you keep them from looking at that throughout the day? You can actually
turn it off. So there’s a way that you can toggle it. The fishing chaos
does not allow because they have to sign up for it. So there’s a way
that they can turn it off so they can’t see everybody else. They can
only see their own their own can’t see their own field. Yeah. So that
that’s how that’s how it’ll be all. It’ll be done. I’ll be fun to watch.
All right. Anything else about the NWT that you want to that you want to
talk about? No. Just check it out on March 11th, and I hope I survive
until then.