By Steve Weisman
(L to R) Bill Elling, John Amick and Steve Weisman hold three of the crappies they weighed in at the Sunday weigh-in and helped them weigh in 6 pounds seven ounces for their 10-crappie limit.
The 33rd annual Pocahontas Iowa Great Lakes Invitational Fishing Tournament (PIGLIFT) was held on the Iowa Great Lakes chain September 11-12, and I, along with partners John Amick and Bill Elling, fished the tournament for the 31st consecutive year. A total of 32 three-person teams had the choice of fishing walleye and panfish (perch, bluegill, crappies). A team could only win one category for the weekend.
For years, the rules for the walleye category included a 5-fish limit per boat of three anglers, a tournament determined 14-inch minimum length limit and then the Iowa DNR standard slot limit of 17-22 inches and one over the slot.
The last two years, however, has been a “Catch, Measure, Video/Photo and Immediate Release” tournament. In that way, it becomes a total length tournament, and slot fish can be included in the measuring possession and then immediately released. So, the tournament becomes a total fish length tournament.
I especially like that no longer are “legal” walleyes kept in the livewell the full day and then brought to the scales to be weighed and released. Now, it’s measure, photo and release. Much better on mortality rates.
The key is that all measure rules must be followed, or that fish is not allowed. Here are the PIGLIFT rules. The official PIGLIFT ruler must be used. In addition, the person doing the measuring, must be wearing the Official PIGLIFT wristband and be visible in the video/picture. A legal fish to measure must be 14” or greater. Walleyes are to be placed on the measure stick with the nose touching the front of the board and the tail pinched. A short video of each fish you wish to enter showing the entire walleye and a close up of the nose and tail. Photos will also work. Two photos per measured fish, one that shows the entire length of the fish (and wristbands) and a second close up of the pinched tail. Total fish length is recorded rather than weight. If it does not quite touch the line, round down by the nearest ¼”.
PIGLIFT walleye results
For the two days, a total of 64 walleyes were measured with five boats collecting five-fish limits. The top team on Saturday measured five walleyes for 106 inches, while the top team on Sunday measured five walleyes for 93.5 inches. The largest walleye was a 28.25-inch walleye with three others over 26.5 inches. As usual, most of the fish came deep trolling crankbaits.
PIGLIFT panfish results
For the panfish division, a maximum of 10 panfish could be brought to the scales. Crappies, bluegill and perch were brought to the scales set up at Kabele’s Trading Post after each day’s fishing. The top weight of 7 pounds 4 ounces came on Saturday, followed by 6 pounds 13 ounces and 6 pounds 7 ounces on Sunday.
Our story
For all of these years, my fishing partners and I have fished the panfish side of PIGLIFT. For one thing, we love to fish panfish, and we don’t spend a lot of time fishing crankbaits deep for walleyes. We have won many times over the years with our catches of jumbo perch on Big Spirit and bluegills on West Okoboji, but in the last few years, the crappie population has exploded on West Okoboji and East Okoboji. We’ve learned that 10–12-inch crappies are going to weigh more than the normal 10–11-inch perch and 9-inch bluegills. Until this year, we kept trying, and we’d bring a good basket of perch or bluegills to the scales and get destroyed by 2-3 pounds each day.
So, finally, this year I decided if we ever wanted to really compete again, it was time to figure the crappie bite out. With the help of Tim Milner, a friend of mine, who had fished West Okoboji crappies with another fishing buddy, he gave me a crappie tutorial.
We went to trolling 1/16-ounce jigs tipped with different colored plastics: chartreuse, purple and even bubble gum twister tails. We targeted 10–20-foot depths at .9 to 1.1 mph. Each time I fished over the summer, I would fish bluegills and on the same trip target crappies. So, by the time of PIGLIFT, I had four different spots that held decent crappies.
On Saturday morning, we headed to my first crappie spot main spot, but six boats were already there when we arrived at 7 a.m. That was pretty disappointing. No way I wanted to battle that many boats on a trolling run in the same area, so we moved on. We hit my other spots, and caught several 8-inch crappies and bluegill, but we knew that we’d never be in the running. So, we threw them back and headed back to watch the CYHAWK battle. did find nice bluegills in 35 feet of water, but they would not bite when we jigged for them. We had to cast our Jigger Minnow away from the boat, let it fall toward the bottom and then jig it back to the boat. The bite often came on the way down or as we jigged it back to the boat.
On Sunday, we headed for our first crappie spot, and there were three other boats working the shoreline in depths between 10-20 feet of water. I decided we could troll there, too, and keep out of the other boats’ trolling route. We ended up catching a 10-crappie limit of 9 ¾ inches to 10 ¼ inches and weighed in 6 pounds seven ounces. It was good for second place on Sunday and third place overall for the two days.
We probably caught 35-40 crappies, and unlike on Saturday, when they kept hitting the tail of the plastic, on Sunday, they would latch on…then it was set the hook. One interesting thing happened on Sunday. About 9:30 that morning, a mini front came through, the temperature dropped, and the wind came up from the northeast. It lasted for about 30-40 minutes. During that time, the crappies went crazy, and the best bite was in 10 feet of water about 30 yards out from the docks.
It was quite the weekend, and best of all it was two days of fishing with three great friends. Lots of bickering, jokes, reminiscing and just plain fun!
One of the best parts of the PIGLIFT experience is that it’s competitive, but there are no grudge matches. Saturday night is an evening social at McKeens Pub and Grill with a great ribeye, baked potato and salad bar…along with some awards and door prizes. We can’t wait until next year!
