Reetz Lake produces ‘eyes By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
WEBSTER, S.D. — It was early morning, but there was no sunrise.
We sat in the parking lot at the boat ramp on Bitter Lake, my boat still on the trailer.
Across the western horizon an angry mass of blue clouds hung like a curtain, and sharp streaks of lightening occasionally ripped across its dark tapestry. So far, the rain was light and most of it would move north, but we waited.
It was afternoon before we felt safe enough to venture out. Les Rowland, a local, and longtime friend, had joined Gary Howey, Kyle Nickolite and me for this morning adventure.
We dragged bottom bouncers and spinners across a sunken bar and I took a 17-inch walleye right off the bat. But, that was it.
We fished three more hours without a bite.
Would tomorrow be any better?
It was.
No rain greeted us the next morning and we launched the boat on Reetz Lake just south of town. It’s a small lake with restrictive walleye limits. In fact, only one walleye over 28 inches may be kept.
That means there is a lot of walleyes in the lake, and we gambled that high numbers would result in more fish in the boat, but not the livewell.
We were right.
We started banging good walleyes right off the end of a cut bank on the west side. I could see the fish on the depth finder between 12 and 14 feet, lying right on the bottom. We caught a couple, but it wasn’t until the wind came up sending two footers into the shoreline that the real action began.
We quit at noon after boating a bunch of walleyes from three to five pounds on spinners and crawlers. We also bagged a couple smallmouth and big perch.