Are you a sucker for punishment?

When you're out fishing have you noticed that you tend to interpret most of the arcs you see on your sonar screen as being the targeted species? It's often wishful thinking, I know, because I've fallen into the trap myself, Especially when the fish on the sonar screen are located where they're suppose to be and behaving the way they're suppose to behave. Last weekend was a good case in point: My daughter Jennifer and grandsons Campbell and Liam hopped into the Kingfisher with me for couple of hours of walleye fishing. Our goal was to catch enough 14- to 17-inch eating-size fish for a great shorelunch. To be honest, I didn't anticipate it would be much of a challenge since the walleye bite has been stellar this year on Lake of the Woods. In fact, the only challenge we've had most days has been catching enough walleyes "small enough to keep for dinner. Even though the provincial regulations allow an angler to retain four walleyes, one of which can be over 18-inches, our "boat rule is to release anything bigger than 17 inches. After we'd scooted a dozen or so miles down lake, I flipped the screen over from GPS mode to sonar mode and almost immediately spotted scads of nice arcs swimming tight to the bottom in 27 feet of water”aha, a big school of walleyes! I pitched out a marker to pinpoint the fish, drifted slightly downwind so I could keep the nose of the boat on the buoy, dropped down the front electric and starting baiting hooks. And the action was good. We caught a steady stream of walleyes, including a gorgeous 7- or 8-pound ˜eye that Jenny caught and released. Still, even with an ample supply of shorelunch-size walleyes swimming in the livewell, I had to confess that with so many fish showing up on the sonar screen that we should have been catching them even faster. That is when Liam set his rod into an obviously nice head shaker. Only it was a fat white sucker, not a walleye. And then, almost on cue, Campbell doubled his over his rod tip and hauled in a beautiful 13-inch jumbo yellow perch. Puzzle solved. That a horde of jumbo perch were also mixed in with the school of walleyes was no surprise, as the walleye-yellow perch predator-prey relationship is one of the classics of first year fisheries management. As a matter of fact, walleyes are the largest members of the perch family of fishes. And the white sucker was no shocker, either, although most walleye anglers never consider the possibility that what they're seeing on their sonar screens are white suckers, as opposed to the intended species. The reason is because suckers, which lack teeth, are primarily bottom filter feeders, so they're much less prone to hitting a lure or bait presented for walleyes. As a result, anglers will often sit over top of a school of walleyes they've pinpointed, struggle to catch a few fish, and leave assuming most of the ˜eyes were in a "neutral, "negative, or "turned off mood. What they fail to consider, however, and what often is the case, is that most of the walleyes they're seeing on their sonar screens are white "bugle lips. I've confirmed it many times after dropping down the Marcum underwater camera. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST!