Night Shift Walleye

Putting in some after-dark hours on the Mid-Columbia in midwinter could yield trophy fish – maybe even a new state record.

By Jeff Holmes

From Cathlamet and St. Helens on the lower river to the Canadian border by Trail, B.C., the Columbia is chock-full of walleye. That goes for the tidally influenced waters of the Lower Columbia; the reservoirs behind Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary Dams; the free-flowing Hanford Reach; and the reservoirs behind Priest Rapids, Wanapum, Rock Island, Rocky Reach, Wells, Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams. In each of these 13 distinct stretches, walleye can (and should) be pursued during February, sometimes to great success. Really good fishing for these tasty fish occurs in each stretch, but night fishing the Tri-Cities area during February offers by far your best chances to land a trophy fish over 10 pounds – or even a new state record topping 20 pounds. A worldrecord fish topping 25 pounds seems unlikely, but it seems far more likely to occur here than anywhere else in the world of walleye these days.

Lake Wallula, aka the McNary Pool, is the reservoir behind McNary Dam that reaches into North Richland and the bottom of the free-flowing Hanford Reach. This stretch of river receives the Walla Walla, Snake and Yakima Rivers and has become famous for the world’s best fishing for trophy female walleye. Walleye density in this pool has never been great, and the low density and huge prey base allows outsized specimens to occur. On any given night, another

20-plus-pounder could be caught, like John Grubenhoff’s 20.32-pound Washington record from February 28, 2014, the only fish of this class caught anywhere in the world in the past roughly 30 years.

These pregnant, piscivorous, eggheavy beasts weigh as much as or more than 2 pounds heavier than they will after spawning in the late winter or early spring. February is prime time for trophy walleye anglers to grind away after personal-best or state-record fish. Females will surely bite during the day, but they bite much better under cover of darkness, and a dedicated group of local and traveling anglers, including guides, chase these trophy fish nightly. The full moon is more popular than the new moon, but some argue only because it’s easier for people to see. Walleye can bite well any night.

I live .4 mile from a boat launch in

Pasco, where 19-pound walleye have been caught, and I live a short boat run from where recent state records have been caught, a fact that over a decade ago got me into the sport, dragging Bandit plugs behind my boat in the dark in reliable places where females feed while staging to spawn. I’ve had a couple great nights, several decent nights, and lots of slow nights and skunked nights as I learned to fish effectively and as I also learned that walleye can be fickle in the dark, just as in the day.

My whole life I have loved night fishing, so one might think I’d be out every night based on where I live. But in the past few years, February night fishing has changed my perspective on safety after a couple of close calls, including a very scary night in dense fog a few Februaries back. I still go in my own boat, but not nearly so often and not when there’s any chance of fog. One wisp of fog sends me running for the launch immediately.

WHEREAS THE CONTROL freak in me usually would prefer skippering the craft for night walleye fishing, an occasional guided trip with someone who fishes every day and is a better boater than me is increasingly welcome. So in anticipation of this article and while looking for something better to tell you all than “Drag around Bandit lures in the dark in X, Y, and Z general zones,” I contacted Tyler Miller of MillerTime Fishing (fishmillertime .com). Miller is a really good young dude and arguably the best nighttime trophy walleye guide in Tri-Cities. He’s definitely my recommendation among many options. As this deadline neared, it occurred to me to reach out to inquire about jumping aboard a guided trip for a few hours with a camera and foregoing the fishing rod. He didn’t have a trip scheduled –a rarity –but he rounded up four of his regular clients on a moment’s notice and we all locked into a plan to put in four hours on a Friday night, launching from a popular boat launch near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers.

Bringing too many warm clothes when night fishing is far more desirable than being cold, so despite the mild forecast of evening temperatures in the 40s with no wind, I dressed in layers, wore Sorels and brought three extra coats and snowpants. I met up with Miller and crew at his boat on a dark dock and handed in what seemed like excessive amounts of clothing, especially when I saw that Miller had added a nice boat top to his Alumaweld guide sled. I introduced myself to fatherson duo Jason and Breken Lindgren of Pasco, Breken’s friend Karson

Savage of Pasco, and Scott Abernethy of Pasco, a retired Pacific Northwest National Laboratory aquatic research lab manager. I suspected as I stepped aboard that I’d be the only passenger swilling giant cans of White Claws in my proven cadence of “remove Claw can from backpack, suck Claw sauce from can, return can to backpack.”

Miller motored us into the main channel of the Columbia and pointed the bow downstream, headed for not-so-secret holy water by Buoy 30 at the end of the McNary National Wildlife Refuge’s Peninsula Unit. The stretches of river between Foundation Island and Buoy 30 and between Buoy 30 and the Walla Walla River are hallowed ground for giant walleye. I won’t be more descriptive of where we fished than to say we were trolling upstream across rocky cobble bottoms focusing on 18- to 23foot depths, the perfect depth range for Bandit plugs trolled upstream at .8 to 1.4 mph speeds. Lure color does not seem critical.

After a short, high-speed run to where the lights of the Wallula Paper Mill were visible, Miller dispensed the back rods to the two boys, who let their lines out an identical distance, 140 feet, on the Daiwa Lexa linecounters spooled with 30-pound braid. Next, Jason and Scott deployed their front rods 130 feet each to avoid tangles with the back rods, and we were fishing. We slid slowly forward into the .6-mph current to achieve a speed over ground of about 1 mph. Our 7-foot-10 Okuma SST mag taper rods bounced gently in the rod holders, showing that our plugs were hunting the depths.

Miller’s arsenal of plugs bear many teeth marks, and some plugs are nearly devoid of color. He’s a firm believer in some plugs hunting and catching way better than others and religiously