St Croix Report: 7/16
Walleyes becoming more predictable and respectable!
On Wednesday, I spent the better part of the whole day reacquainting myself with the walleyes on the river, it had been a couple weeks since I’d specifically targeted them. But as it always is, the season progressing has helped make them a little more predictable, and respectable in size as well. I had my good buddy Ingy with me in the morning and my other buddy Ben in the eveing, Here’s what we found.
The shad have started to really become pelagic, seeing more and more schools on the graph as well as silver and smallmouth bass busting them on the surface. Certainly this can help eliminate some of the guesswork as to where the eyes will be. By the way, silvers on the fly rod can be about the most exciting way to fish around, especially this time of the year. A 5 weight rod, couple of white poppers and your in business.
I fished primarily off shore structures and the wind blown shore lines. Yesterday was blowing S/W consistently all day, and the bait and fish were really stacked on the shoreline & windward breaks. We got fish at most depths, but the bigger fish came in 24′ to 30′ of water, generally on small points or inside breaks in the structure. I like to troll this time of the year, 2 lines with planers and snap weights and 2 down rods on the inside, either with a really deep diver or a diver & snap weight. Baits like deep down raps, reef runners, size 9 shad raps and walleye diver/tail dancer baits all worked well. Colors ranged from Fire tiger to standard shad colors. I am not as convinced that color is as key as shape and wiggle, so pick a confidence color and go. The shoreline trolling was most productive for bigger fish. The advantage of the shore is the varied depths you can ply. I run a un-weighted shad rap off the inside planer, up in 8′-15′. A deep diver, un-weighted again on the inside down rod, running back far enough to contact bottom in 20′. The outside rods require a little more finesse to stay in the zone. Generally we’ll run a deep diver behind the off shore planer, 50′ up to a 1-2oz snap weight, then another 75′ or so out, depending on the break. The down rod is essentially the same set, no planer and sometimes more line out. Precise 3-way fishing could be deadly if that’s your technique, and may make managing lines a little easier @ boat side as well. The steepness of the break does matter, look for more gradual slopes as well as irregularities and turns. A buddy said to me once, as we stood looking up a steep hill and discussing structure, “would you run straight up that”, heck no and neither do the fish.
Forgive the lack of images, between digitals at the moment, but here’s the recap. For the morning shift we picked up about 25 eyes, with only a couple shorts! The nicer fish were 22.5″, 23.5″ and a number in the 17″ to 20″ class. All fat & burping up little shad. The real bonus of the morning came in the form of a couple Muskies on walleye cranks! One 36″ and a 37″, not huge, but what a hoot on planer boards and cranks. If you’ve never seen a big fish hit a planer, think Jaws, with the barrels going under. “he’ll never take 3 barrels!”, yea right. The evening shift saw much of the same, the bite was holding strong and even a few bigger fish. We managed a bunch of nice fish for the table and a 24.5″ went back as well. All in all a fantastic day of fishing, get out there an take advantage of the opportunity!
For those who might be interested, I’ve got a Lake MI report I can hook you up with. We spent last Saturday and Sunday out of Kenosha Harbor, chasing silver fish.
reel-good-then
MikeT
