I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on Green Lake. My brother and I fished the Little Crow Angler’s Walleye Tournament for the third year in a row. On Saturday we weighed two fish for a total of 4.57 lbs. That put us in 14th of 42 boats. The leaders had 14 lbs. Sunday we ended up with only one weighable fish at a whopping 1.01 lbs for a two day total of 4.58 lbs. The winners had a total of 22 lbs. We finished in the middle of the pack, but like every year we learned a lot more about the lake. We did beat out my Dad and Uncle, and some other friends that fish the lake a lot. The tournament is very well run and pretty cheap at only a $300 entry per team. The winners are guaranteed $3,000.
Walleye Fishing Report:
The walleyes were my primary focus this week and I was able to find a few. On Thursday I spent 8 hours on the lake using my electronics. Green Lake is full of structure, so I concentrated on spots that had produced in the past. I spent most of my time looking in 25-40 fow. I finally located a good group of fish, but I was only able to catch one 10” eye. On Friday my brother joined me for another day of scouting. We marked fish in the same spot again, but we couldn’t get any takers. After some more looking, we located some fish on a weed edge in 29 fow. I dropped my rig down and hoisted up a nice 18 incher. There were a lot of boats working close by, so we chose to get out of there before anyone saw us. Saturday we went to a community spot that had been holding fish both days. Most of the boats were working the 30-34 foot range, but we worked the 25 foot weedline that had fish all over it. Right away my brother caught a small eye and here came the boats. I kept us hovering right in the same spot for another 10 minutes at which time my brother reeled up a nice 2.8 lb eye. After another hour of nothing we decided to hit another spot. On the same spot as the day before, we marked 3 fish in 29 feet. We drifted into 33 feet and started working our way back up. Five minutes later I boated a solid 18 inch fish. We fished the area hard for another couple hours, but had no more takers. From 11am-3pm we hit spots all over the lake with no luck. Sunday we started in the same place as Saturday thinking that some of our followers would follow the leaders instead. Some did, but we also picked some new neighbors. The spot was pretty crowded and nobody was catching walleyes, so we moved to spot number two. I immediately picked up a 14” fish that shrunk throughout the day and ended up being too small at weigh in. We were no longer marking fish anywhere, so we started thinking outside the box. It was windy and slightly overcast, so we decided to look shallower. We caught many other fish in 20 fow, but no eyes. Finally we went to check out a cluster of boats that had formed. When we got there, my sonar was reading 15 feet and the Lakemaster chip was reading the same. We thought they were crazy, but after seeing two eyes caught we knew they had to be there. We only had an hour left, so we figured this place was a good as any. We saw another 10 fish caught before my brother got one. We were stripped numerous times, and pulled weeds off our lines every few minutes. It was 3 already and we had to pack up while the boats in the later flight were still catching fish. For 4 days we boated a total of 7 walleyes.
We learned a lot Sunday afternoon. Just because we have caught them deep in years past does not mean that there are not fish up shallow. I know that there were at least 30 walleyes pulled off that spot Sunday afternoon. I also heard that 4 of the top 6 teams were fishing in under 20 feet. The deep water fisherman like us and many other locals finished out of the money this year. Moral of the story is to look at all the options available.
“Other” fish report:
Green Lake should have been changed to Bass Lake a few years ago. There are tons of nice Smallies, Largemouth, and Rock Bass. We did not waste too much time measuring many, but we had a half dozen Smallies that taped out at 18-20 inches. I was the Rock Bass king with about 6-8 each day. I put one on the scale and it was around 1.5 lbs. We also caught more Northerns than in years past. We had two or three around 5 or 6 lbs. The largemouth and bluegills are all over around the cabin. I saw a Largemouth twice that had to be pushing 6 lbs. There were also some very nice bluegills and a few crappies sitting over spawning beds. Our estimated totals for non-targeted fish were: Smallies-25, Largemouth-1, Rock Bass-25, Northerns-12, and Perch-8.
Send me a PM if you want more info on catching some of these nice Smallies and Largemouth.
