One of the things I enjoy about fishing is meeting new anglers.
Last spring I had the opportunity of being added to the Wannabe Fisherman Pro Staff Team along with Taylor Klimczak, an aspiring young angler who started fishing at the age of 5.
His father would take him out on weekends and fell in love with it right from the beginning. As Taylor grew older his father became very ill and their fishing trips slowly came to an end. His father passed away in 2009.
Taylor decided to take up the sport again and was hooked once again.
After talking with Taylor a couple times last spring we finally set a date to meet up one evening for a night fish on Kenogamissi Lake.
Once on the lake we decided to troll for some Walleyes. I quickly discovered that Taylor wasn’t just an average angler.
After deciding which crank baits we would use, I asked Taylor if he ever heard of the Precision Trolling book to which he replied, ” I have the App.”
This a pleasant surprise to me to see a young angler already committed to learning how to troll properly.
For those of you that don’t know what the Precision Trolling book is, in a nutshell, tells you how much line to let out to get a crank bait you are running to the depth you want it to run with different types of line.
Unfortunately the crank bait bite wasn’t on that evening however it gave me a chance to get to know this young angler better.
After loading the boat Taylor asked me to join him again for a day.
Since I had a great time with him that evening, it was a no-brainer and we decided to keep in touch to see when both our schedules were free to do a day trip.
Well a couple of weeks later I received an email from Taylor asking if I was interested in joining him for a day fish in his new-to-him, 18-foot 2001 Tracker Targa powered by a Mercury Optimax 200.
Since we were both free the following day we decided on a time to meet.
The next day during our ride to the lake, Taylor had some questions about running a larger boat. His previous boat was a 14 foot aluminum tiller with a 20 hp, and he had no experience with larger boats.
I told him if he had any questions that I couldn’t answer that I was sure that my good friend and Lund Pro Staff Craig Salmonson would be more than happy to help him out along with the other anglers that ran bigger boats.
After launching his boat, Taylor headed to an area that held large bait balls all summer. Large walleyes were in the area feeding on the baitfish.
After checking his Precision Trolling App we let out the proper amount of line that put our crankbaits just above the fish we were marking on the sonar. Off Shore Tackle Planer Boards were attached to our lines to take our baits away from the boat’s path.
After a couple of hours of changing crank baits without a bite, Taylor reached in his rod locker and pulled out a rod spooled with lead core and attached a spinner rig with a crawler to it.
Again Taylor took me by surprise with his knowledge as I had never seen this done before.
It was my turn to ask him questions, which he answered without any problems.
After a couple of passes my rod loaded up with a decent five pounder.
After a couple quick pictures we released it back to the depths.
We managed a couple of other nice walleyes on crank baits that day and although the lead core crawler harness combo didn’t produce on this day, I know it works from the pictures of the walleyes Taylor has caught using it.
On our ride home Taylor told me while he was waiting to get on with the O.P.P. that his goals for next year were to continue to improve by working on consistency, getting into tournaments on the NOWT, and to grow the sport by promoting to a younger audience.
I am looking forward to fishing against Taylor this season and know that he will be an angler to watch out for in the years to come. He will be a great ambassador to the sport.
Are you passionate about fishing? Would you like to be featured in my series or do you own a lodge that you would like to be featured?
Please feel free to contact me via email: bungee001@gmail.com.
