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By Stan Fagerstrom

Part 2

Those elusive critters called are among the country’s most popular sports fish.

Are you one of the many anglers who would like to consistently put more of these hard to catch and good eating fish in your boat? The man whose company now markets some of the world’s top lures for walleye fishing has some thoughts in this regard it pleases me to share.

That man, of course, is the guy I told you about in my previous column. He’s Bob Schmidt, the general manager of a lure making company out in Washington State. Bob’s company has already set more state and national fish catching size records than many lure marketing operations that have been around a whole lot longer.

Mack’s Lure, the company Bob operates, provided every darn one of the lures that he and his guide partner used to catch that beautiful string of double limits of walleyes you see pictured here. Let’s take a closer look at just what those lures were and how Bob and Keith Jensen, his guide partner, used them.

You'll have to look awhile to find a nicer double limit of walleyes than this one. They came out of Banks Lake in Washington State. Every darn one of them was caught on one of the lures marketed by Mack's Lure.

Bob and Keith both have the Washington State fishing licenses that allow anglers to use two rods. That meant that while they were fishing that morning at the Evergreen State’s Banks Lake earlier this year they had four lures along behind their boat. Each of the four rods was rigged with a different lure. As I’ve mentioned, all four of those lures are among the many fish catchers bearing the Mack’s Lure brand. The four lures were a Smile Blade Slow Death rig; the Mack’s Lure Wally Pop; a Mack’s Double Whammy Walleye lure and a Mack’s Cha Cha Squidder.

“We caught fish on all four lures,” Schmidt says in detailing how he and Jensen caught their double limits of walleye. “Our fish ran from about 2½ to 4-pounds in size.”

A Mack's Lure Cha Cha used along with a nightcrawler caught some of the fish pictured here.

It’s probably going to take you from dawn to dusk to bring in a walleye catch like the one pictured here--- right? Wrong! “We went out early, Schmidt says, “but we had our limits and quit fishing about 10:30 a.m.”

Now that, my friends, is all the info I need to know some of what I’m going to try the next time I have opportunity to go walleye fishing. Those elusive buggers have skunked me far too often in my some of my own past fishing adventures.

Certainly those lures I’ve already named played a major role in the success these two anglers enjoyed that morning on Banks Lake. But there is, of course, a good bit more to be said of the thought and planning that were also a part of the scheme of things before these two experts even launched their boat.

A Mack's Lure Slow Death set up also got its share of fish.

Bob Schmidt mentioned some of these things when I had opportunity to visit with him about his Banks Lake experience. He answered my questions and detailed some of these points for me.

“Stan,” Bob said, “hang around with experts in any field of and there are certain things almost all of them are going to mention. One of the first is what kind of a forage base is there going to be in the river or on the lake you’ll be fishing.”

Bob’s right. I’ve heard bass fishermen say the lake they were heading for was loaded with yellow perch. These were the primary forage for the lake’s largemouth bass population.

When I fished such a lake once my guides wanted me to be sure I brought along lures in a perch finish. They also wanted my lure selection to include some perch finished top water lures that could be manipulated to imitate a wounded or injured fish flopping around on the surface. You’ll hear much the same thing if you’re asking a Canadian guide what you need to bring if you’re flying up there to go on certain of those beautiful Canadian lakes. A capable guide will undoubtedly name the flies you should carry as well as the necessary sizes. What he is providing will undoubtedly be duplicating at least in part patterns similar to what the fish in the lakes you’ll be fishing are feeding on.

A Mack's Lure Wally Pop also got in on the action.

“Actually,” Bob Schmidt told me, “there are five other primary points I give serious consideration whenever and wherever I’m going to be on the water. There’s nothing mysterious or particularly difficult about any of them. While it’s great to know what these five points are in advance, you won’t actually put them into practice until you are on the water.”

So just what are the five points the general manager of a record breaking lure company follows? Don’t miss my next column. I’ll detail them for you.

You’ll find that column starting right here November 15.

-To Be Continued-