Irene Fike would have been very proud of her sons.
If you read my last column, you’ll recall I mentioned how a pair of trophy-winning brothers from Pennsylvania credit their mother for much of their success as professional walleye anglers. The brothers are Richard and Mark Fike, of Farmington.
“Our mother supported us all the way,” the brothers say. “We still feel like her spirit is with us.” The Fike brothers lost their mother to cancer in April of this year. She didn’t have opportunity to see them win the 2006 Cabela’s National Team Walleye Championship at South Dakota’s Lake Sharpe in June.
As I’ve mentioned, she would have been justifiably proud of the record her sons have compiled in the field of tournament walleye angling had she been here to see it.
Richard, the oldest of the brothers, didn’t sit around thumping himself between the shoulder blades as a result of winning that South Dakota Championship in June. How do I know? Because in early July he took part in the Northeast Walleye Circuit Championship on Lake Erie. I’ll be darned if he didn’t win that one too! Richard and his partner weighed in a whopping 39-pounds of walleyes to take the top prize.
Run into somebody who has established the track record Richard Fike has and it goes without saying he can provide details to help with your own walleye fishing. In my last column I talked mainly about my interview with Mike, Richard’s younger brother. This time around let’s look more closely at Richard’s thoughts about putting walleyes in the boat.
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| You have a choice of sizes when you rig with Mack's Lure Smile Blades. These lightweight Mylar blades can also be adjusted to best match your boat speed. |
As those who read my previous column know, Richard and Mike used Smile Blades to win the Cabela’s Championship. I was particularly interested in learning the details on how they made these lightweight, easy-turning Mylar blades perform as they did.
“I’ve been using Smile Blades in my tournament fishing for the past three years,” Richard says. “They’ve made it possible to for me to utilize a whole new concept where bottom bouncing for walleyes is concerned. These blades are so versatile they make it possible to use a variety of techniques.”
Boat speed is one of the areas where Smile Blades played a major role. In the Cabela’s Tournament in South Dakota Richard and Mike pulled their bottom bouncing rigs at speeds of 1.3 to 1.5 miles per hour. They have two GPS units mounted on their boat and they keep a sharp eye on those units. Once they determine the speed that’s required to consistently catch fish, they make darn sure they stick with it.
Newcomers to walleye fishing might not realize just how important moving at the right speed is. In South Dakota for example, the brothers found that if they slowed down to a boat speed of 1.1 miles per hour they started picking up catfish and carp instead of the walleyes they were after.
I asked Richard if Smile Blades have helped where boat speeds are concerned. “Absolutely,” he says. “I found that out in a tournament in which I took part in Ohio last year. Don’t ask me why, but we just couldn’t get hits on the other spinner blades we tried. Once we switched to Mack’s Lure Wally Pops and used them with two Smile Blades out front we started catching fish.
“We dropped clear down to .5 miles per hour in that tournament. Compare that to the Cabela’s Tournament on Lake Sharpe. In the Cabela’s Tournament we ran mostly at 1.3 miles per hour. If you weren’t going that fast, you just didn’t get any hits. Our Smile Blades enabled us to change boat speeds with no problem. They perform well at either fast or slow speeds.”
It requires some understanding of the magnitude of the annual Cabela’s Team Championship to really appreciate exactly what it means to win the event. A total of 65,000 anglers participated in the beginning. The field was eventually pared down through elimination contests to a 222-man field that was on hand for the Lake Sharpe competition.
You don’t even get into a national competition like that without sufficient expertise, attitude and effort. Having the right gear is also a big time factor and all of us here at Mack’s Lure are proud of the fact that Mark and Richard used our Smiles Blades to get the job done.
I asked Richard Fike to share his thoughts with me regarding the three most important things any of us has to do to become consistently successful at catching walleye. I also wanted to know the role Mack’s Lure Hot Wings played in his winning the Northeast Walleye Championship at Lake Erie. I’ll share how he answered those questions my next column beginning here on Sept. 1.
Don’t miss it! You’re a cinch to pick up some more tips you can use in your own fishing.
-To Be Continued-
