Short outing – Sunday 10/18

Had a few hours this morning I could fish. Got out late due to having to work for a while first. Hit the lake about 9:00 and quit by noon. Spent the entire time pulling lead core. Managed a 24″ saugeye, two sauger about 21″, two sauger around 17″, 2 short sauger and a short walleye. All the fish came on #7 jointed shad raps in fire tiger. Were a lot of boats out when I first got out, but as soon as the wind kicked up around 10:30, most of them left. The majority of my fish came after the wind came up.

Thanks for the report. I’m hoping to get over to L. WI to fish with Joel later this fall. Those monster saugers look like a blast.

There are more of the slot sauger around every year. Pretty soon the majority will be slot fish. You won’t here me complaining about it though. I hope you get the chance to get over here this fall. There are some real slobs in there now.

All Joel had to say was “Big Saugers + Plastics Bite” and I signed on the dotted line. As long as that bite materializes… I’ll be making the trip.

Hey John, nice seeing you at the pier. Sure wish I would have started trolling a little earlier on Sunday. Client did lose a pig just below the boat on a blade bait but other than that, it was pretty slow. Trolling in the afternoon was dead but we had some fish move in right around dusk.
I was out again yesterday and we popped a 27″ walleye on the first pass trolling cranks with lead core plus a couple decent saugers a little later. I was to tired to do it last night but I’ll have a report up later this evening.

As for the plastic bite, it seems like around here, the fish like them better as the water gets colder. So far, I just haven’t been able to get much going on those but when I looked back at my previous years reports, it does seem like the colder it gets, the better the paddletail bite gets.
Lead core has just started to produce and that bite should continue for at least two or three weeks. We’re right at the beginning of that bite.

Once the water temps get down below 40 degrees, thats when I expect the plastics to start picking up and continue to get better as the water keeps getting colder.

I’ll keep you posted on that James as I’m really, really looking forward to that bite as well!

Good to see you on the water yesterday, Joel. Tough bite for us, with only two dink suager coming to the boat at the tressel, plus a couple nice smallies, near the head of the lake. Darn wind made it very uncomforatble in the morning, so we looked for some calmer areas to get a break, then back at it in the afternoon. Tried live bait, plastics, blades, and cranks. didn’t come set up for trolling, so we pretty much drifted or pitched. May have to head back in couple weeks.

Kevin and I were out yesterday and it was a pretty tough day. We tried plastics first thing and did nothing. Pulled lead core after that and picked up a half dozen short fish. Tried a different spot and marked a fair amount of fish but couldn’t get anything to take a crank. Tried jigging the river but the current was next to nothing so we went back to pulling lead at the end of the day. Lost a couple decent feeling fish, boated a couple shorts, and then put a 21″ sauger in the boat while we were pulling the gear to go home. Might try to get out Saturday. I have to go to Florida for work on Sunday and will be gone for a week. Should be going good when I return. At least I hope it will be.