If you want to master the essence of meditation, a trip to Tibet might be in order. When it came to catching walleye through the ice, Nathan Zelinsky drove straight to Minnesota.
It wasn’t just the vibes, or the fact the Gopher state boasts one of the world’s most prolific populations of this species. It also has ice. Lots of ice. Recent aberrations aside, it’s a reliable sheet that comes early and stays late, with lots of places to drill holes over fish.
That, says the Bailey resident, is the primary reason ice fishing for walleye remains so much a mystery in Colorado.
“People look at them as a fish that can’t be caught in winter,” said Zelinsky, who headed north shortly after his graduation from Dakota Ridge High School in Jefferson County. “My personal rule is that every fish has to eat.”
The only real problem with walleye, he says, is finding the fish and pegging their feeding pattern.
“There’s a huge school of walleye sitting right out there,” Zelinsky said, waving a gloved paw toward a distant place on Chatfield Reservoir where a dull tint suggests melting. “I know I can catch those fish all day long, but it just isn’t worth it.”
Although many segments of the southwest metro impoundment features solid ice 6 or more inches deep, the issue of safety never is out of mind. Safe ice has formed upstream from the swim beach, along with reliable patches farther to the northeast. But there’s also a broad swatch of open water in the southeast corner, a constant reminder that this isn’t, well, Minnesota.
“The thing about walleye at Chatfield and most other places in Colorado is that the ice seldom stays solid long enough for us to get a pattern,” Zelinsky said. “People get uncomfortable about the ice and don’t go out looking for them.”
Zelinsky credits three years of experience working for veteran guides in Minnesota for the considerable insight he has gained into the habits of walleye and northern pike.
“There are so many places, so much opportunity up there.” Zelinsky said. “You can learn a lot quickly.”
The eastern Colorado walleye puzzle further is complicated by the fact the angling landscape is dominated by basin-shaped reservoirs with little natural structure. As a consequence, fish tend to move more frequently.
“You have to find them, get a pattern going, and this usually takes three or four days,” Zelinsky said.
With only partial access, Zelinsky and a dozen other anglers who came to Chatfield last week were left to nibble around the edges, playing a hopscotch game among the various pits and humps that form a fish-friendly structure.
A shrewd tactician at age 24, Zelinsky uses a clever tactic to pinpoint the changes that attract bottom-hugging walleye. He quickly drills a series of eight or 10 holes like a straight string of pearls across the ice. With a Vexilar sonar device, he next measures depth, scribbling the number in the snow beside each hole. This tells the precise location of each terrain break.
“Walleye are smart,” Zelinsky said. “They wait on the side of a ledge because moving shad have to come up and over. That’s when they ambush them.”
Zelinsky entices walleye with live fathead minnows on a variety of jig hooks. He suspends the minnow just off bottom on 4-pound-test line, then actively jigs a blade bait or spoon in an adjacent hole. A sensitive bobber, just big enough to suspend the minnow, tells when he gets a bite.
He keeps slack above the bobber so he can pick up the rod without spooking the fish.
“If you move the minnow before the fish really grabs it, he’ll swim away,” Zelinsky said.
Zelinsky decided to make the outdoors a career while still in high school. Dream has become reality in the form of Tightline Outfitters (303-947-8327), which he operates with his wife, Stephanie.
With permits at Chatfield, Elevenmile and Wolford reservoirs, the Zelinskys fish for walleye, pike, trout and kokanee salmon all year long. Open-water fishing is done primarily by boat.
Over the next three months, he’ll prowl the ice regularly at Elevenmile and Wolford while keeping a close eye on the temperature and that quicksilver Chatfield ice sheet.
“One of these years, we’re going to get 20 inches of ice in December and then it’s not going to matter what the weather does,” Zelinsky said. “We’re going to have some great walleye fishing.”
It’s either that or go back to Minnesota.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
