| 

NPAA Members Zachowski and Kolb Finish 3rd in Spring Valley IWT

Category: npaa

 Mar 20th, 2012 by OutdoorsFIRST 

Modified Mar 20th, 2012 at 12:00 AM

For the first time in quite a few events the Illinois Walleye Trail anglers had some beautiful weather for yesterday’s 3rd Points Qualifier on the Illinois River. With all of this abnormal weather we have been experiencing the river seems to be a little ahead of schedule. Water temps are in the mid 60’s which is roughly 20 degrees warmer than normal this time year. Resulting in the annual spawning run to be advanced by a week or two.

71 teams set out yesterday morning from Barto Landing in Spring Valley, Il. looking for those big girls that have not yet spent their eggs. Naturally the females weigh more than the males, so they are the target this time of year.

Congratulation to Randy Carroll and Shawn O’Malley for winning this event. Their 13.60 pound basket secured the win for $3,400. They also had big fish of the tournament a 3.22 sauger good for $710!!!!  Rick Zachowski NPAA#231 and Dave Kolb NPAA#607 finished a strong 3rd place with a weight of 12.80 lbs.

Teams were using a variety of tactics from hand lining, pole lining, vertical jigging and trolling lead core in a variety of depth ranges. Many of the teams spoke of 30-40 keeper fish per day with and average size of 15-16″.

The IDNR fish hatchery was on site to take all of the tournaments catch back to the hatchery to complete their spawning process. A total of 399 fish were brought to the scales. 91 of those were males and 272 were females and 34 of which had already spawned. Only two walleyes crossed the scale and no dead fish.