Adaptable Koester and Rhodes Win MWC Event on Illinois River
OutdoorHub 04.07.14
Change happens. The ability to adapt to change was the key to success for the pro walleye team of Jeff Koester and Scott Rhodes who won the season opening event of the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit.
The pre-tournament routine for the duo went fairly normal as they pre-fished the Illinois River near Spring Valley, Illinois. Minn Kota pro Koester said he and his partner relied on past history and a network of teammates to scout for fish at several locations.
“We probably made 20 stops during three days of practice,” said Koester. “We found fish all three days, then we started to determine where we caught the most fish, the biggest fish and where the pre-spawn females were hanging out. We came up with five or six spots that we wanted to utilize for the actual tournament.”
But as any good angler knows, change does indeed happen. Fishing on a river system means water level, current and the amount of debris can all change in a moment’s notice. As the dynamics of the river environment changes so can the location of the fish.
“The opening morning of the tournament, they decided to open some of the gates to the dam and it repositioned the fish from where we were catching them,” commented Koester. “So we had to adjust a little bit on day one. There were more changes overnight, so the morning of the second day our fish had repositioned to a new area again.”
Koester and Rhodes then relied on past experience and knowledge to make necessary adjustments in techniques and patterns to adjust to the changes that had taken place.
Some of those adjustments involved how they were utilizing their equipment. The boat was rigged with a new Terrova 112 with i-Pilot Link installed, a Humminbird 1199SI fishfinder and Humminbird LakeMaster cartography. According to Koester, being able to take advantage of various features on the Link system was critical in locating and catching fish at specific breakline depths.
For instance, Koester and Rhodes typically would use the Follow The Contour feature on the Link system to stay locked on a specific contour depth while fishing a body of water. But for this tournament, the pair had to make a change in technique to allow for heavy boat/barge traffic and large amounts of debris in heavy current.
The pair was usually positioned in the back of the boat in order to “handline” to catch their fish. This meant they had to be able to react quickly to change boat direction to avoid possible collisions. Not wanting to continually go back to the front of the boat to reset direction on the fishfinder, they instead utilized AutoPilot and remote control steering that is part of the Link system as well.
“We setup the screen on our 1199 so half of it displayed Down Imaging and the other half showed the LakeMaster chart,” said Koester. “We then zoomed in on the map so we could clearly see the contour line even when we were five or six feet away. That meant we could remain in the back of the boat, because when you get hooked up it becomes a two-man operation to land the fish.”
Team Koester/Rhodes used the AutoPilot feature to keep the boat automatically heading in a set direction along the contour breakline. If it did become necessary to change speed or direction to avoid objects, the team could stay in back of the boat and use the remote control to make adjustments as needed and then just resume the AutoPilot function when appropriate.
Being able to line up the AutoPilot indicator arrow provided by the Link system and the GPS boat icon on the screen made it even easier to make sure they followed a specific depth contour. Koester said they used the handheld remote the entire tournament and didn’t even take out his foot pedal.
The handheld remote was also important when Koester decided to take advantage of the extra power provided by 112 pounds of thrust available on the new Terrova models. They were able to match the speed of the trolling motor to the speed of the heavy current for holding boat position and still remain in back of the boat.
“I am really looking forward to using features like Cruise Control and Spot-Lock on i-Pilot Link in some of the other events we will be fishing,” said Koester. “But the conditions we faced in this tournament called for us to be able to utilize other techniques. Having that extra power the 112 provides was incredible.”
Upcoming events will continue to have Koester and Rhodes adapt to changing environments. Having a myriad of features and benefits on their equipment will make it that much easier for them to do so.
Koester added this is why it has always been a secondary goal for him and Rhodes to learn something new on every body of water they fish. So, what’s the primary goal…to have fun!
