These last two weeks of July have been such a treat to fish considering how great the weather has been. I’ll take these mid seventy degree days any day of the week.
Fishing has been pretty solid in this time frame, today’s half day trip was off, but we managed fifteen bass, five walleye, and a snag that turned into a flathead catfish. It is great to hook these fish when rigging for walleye. Oh and some fine sheeps of the deep,and a slab crappie.
Most fish recently have come from either trolling cranks or spinners. We’ve had good success on natural colored shad raps trolled in 22 to 28 feet of water. Attached is a picture of my client Monty with a 28.5 eye. This fish almost pulled the rod out of the holder and crushed a yellow perch shad rap. C & R.
Client Fred Hedberg #2 image snagged this dandy 26.5 inch walleye C & R, while we were working a pile of bait off of a steep sand breakline in 23 feet. They key here was the bait coming on and off the structure. I think the eyes crash the bait pods when they can force them into the bottom. Of course you can’t control what the baitfish do, but you can note where they are.
Jerry Baack #3, also got this 21″ sauger, C & R, at the same time as Fred’s nice eye. Doubling up is always nice. The saug smoked a silver shad rap.
This last week rigging with crawlers has been very good, do not be afraid to go deeper than 28 feet as walleyes will often slide right off the structure and position deep. My rigging has been very basic with a single red bead on a Lindy weight or bottom bouncer. You’ll need at least one ounce to work the deeper fish. My leader lengths have been six feet.
As mentioned before spinners have been good, though I’d say over a week ago they were much better. Lately as mentioned rigging and cranks have been better. I always have 12 poles ready and rigged, if one presentation is off I’ll switch in a heartbeat.
I’ve done much better for numbers with bait, and cranks have been turning bigger fish.
Though that is not true for everyone, as I saw a longtime Croix fishing buddy’s boat land a 29.75 inch walleye while rigging bait, again crawlers I would guess, he also said they got a 27″ (nice job John!).
Recently we have had a field day with 14 to 15 inch saugers on cranks. If you are hungry these do the job.
Also all these fish have been caught right smack dab in the middle of the day, no dark 30’s needed here. Also we yanked fish right near the tuna boats (the tuna boats bother me more than the fish, I think the fishies are used to all the noise). The river level is 675.5 though the flow is now moving much faster than last weeks flow.
Keep catchin’
Turk
Nice job Turk 
Thanks for another great report as always much appreciated 
