After our slowest start to our 14th annual LOTW trip, the fishing did finally pick up Saturday evening on through Sunday and for the little while we wetted a line this morning.
Friday we got mostly tiny walleyes & saugers from 4″ to 10″ and a few 13’s. However, my buddy landed a nice 32″ pike that put up a real fun battle.
Saturday morning through early afternoon we saw much of the same, however we were able to put a few saugers on the ice from 12″ to 13″. Saturday late afternoon is when we saw a noticeable improvement in both numbers and size. Nothing huge, but we put a few saugers & eyes on the ice in the 13.5″ to 15.5″ range. The fish-of-the-day though was a 14.25″ jumbo that I caught late afternoon. It was a giant and just beautiful. And it’s my PB jumbo by far.
Sunday fishing got even better for numbers. Size was mostly the same with 13.5″ to 15″ fish. The notable story for Sunday was my bobber went down, I grabbed the rod, jerked hard and the rod bent over to the handle. I knew it was a giant fish and after 30 seconds of battle, the heavy weight was gone. But I still felt a little added weight and when I reeled in, I had a 8″ walleye with fairly deep cuts down its belly. That told the whole story.
This morning we got up early, cleaned and packed, then we each dropped a set line down while waiting for our ride back to shore. In that hour we caught & released a few saugers in the 13″ to 13.5″ range, and I CPR’d a nice 20.5″ walleye.
As for the fishing/rigging details….we were put in a sleeper that was in about 26fow at the toe of a large break into a basin. About 90% of the keeper fish came within 6″ or less of the bottom. A couple of our nice ones came when pounding the bottom and they’d suck it up off the bottom. Only a small handful of fish came from more than 1ft off the bottom.
Primary bite times were from 7:00am to 10:30am, and then again from 3:00pm to 5:30pm. The window between those times was entirely dead except a few 6″ers.
Lures of choice: I caught a BUNCH of our keepers on my set line. A plain white or chartreuse #6 hook with a fathead. My buddy caught a bunch on a single hook 1/2oz chartreuse Swedish pimple. Could not believe the fish he got on that! Even the dinks were annihilating it! We tried a number of jigging spoons, raps & rattling minnow lures. Best 3 were the 1/10oz orange Swedish pimple, 1/8oz red glow Lindy rattling flyer, and a 1/8oz VMC UV glow rattling spoon in the perch firetiger color. Fish had many different attitudes. Some liked it sitting still, some liked to chase it up, some wanted it bounced in their face while others took it off the bottom.
All in all it was a great trip that had a very concerning start to it. The weather was magnificent, we had a great fish fry, and tons of laughs. We will be back next year, but this time we’re going to try early January.
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