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Stroven and Evans Turn Five Bites into Victory at Houghton Lake WWA Team Challenge

Category: Tournament

 May 17th, 2005 by OutdoorsFIRST 

Modified May 17th, 2005 at 12:00 AM

	Dense fog greeted anglers early at Houghton Lake

Dense fog, a temperature of 38 degrees and the threat of rain greeted anglers at Houghton Lake, the second stop of the World Walleye Association – Michigan Division. Brian Stroven and Dean Evans brought 9.82 pounds to the scales including the big fish of 2.16 pounds to take first place. “We caught all of our fish in one area not larger then the tournament trailer,” said Evans. “Our program was simple, a couple of split shots, one chartreuse bead, hook and a black colored leech.” Stroven and Evans allowed the wind to slowly push the boat (held in the winds by two drift socks) over the 5 to 6 foot mud flats, where post-spawn females where staging for the annual mayfly hatch. They had five bites the entire day and were able to put all five into the boat. Stroven and Evans netted a check of $1100.00 for the win and a big fish check of $130.00 plus the TR-1 bonus check of an additional $150.00. Taking second place honors was the Boensch team, a newly married husband and wife team on their first-ever walleye fishing event. They five walleyes to the scales with a total weight of 8.33 pounds and had the second largest walleye of the day at 2 pounds. Fishing not far from Dean and Brian, they pulled two-ounce bottom bouncers in 8 feet of water, trolling with Mack’s Lures smile blades in the green scale color and chartreuse tiger blade color. They started the day with full-sized crawlers, but found the non-aggressive fish would just hold the back half and bite it off. After switching to half of a crawler, they were able to put a limit in the boat.

	The top three at Houghton Lake

Third place went to Terry Mackollip and Troy Stachler weighing in 5 fish with a total of 7.27 pounds. They were also fishing in the same location on the lake but keyed in on fish in 8 to 10 feet of water. They used small ice jigs from Troy’s Tackle tipped with jumbo leeches which they purchased from our site sponsor Lyman’s on the Lake. They also found the fish feeding on small perch later in the afternoon and switched over to Phelps floaters in a fire tiger color, using a felt tipped marker they drew stripes on the bait to mimic the perch pattern the already captured walleye continued had spit up in their live well. Special thanks go out to the Houghton Lake area for their hospitality and crowd that showed up to watch the anglers weigh their fish. Lyman’s on the Lake, who had the staff open at 5 am and kept the doors open until late in the night to help our anglers with all oftheir fishing needs. Bushwacker Live baits donated 2 dozen crawlers for each team to use. Mack’s Lures provided each team with a set of walleye pops in the orange tiger color a very popular color for Houghton lake walleye. Tr-1 of Michigan once again supported the anglers with an additional $150.00 check for big fish and the standing offer of $300 off a TR-1 system just for fishing with the WWA. The WWA is sponsored by YarCraft boats and Outdoors FIRST Media.The next WWA Michigan even will be held on June 25th at Saginaw Bay event and will launch out of AuGres at the city launch. Call Troy Walwood at 616 842-2399 for details.