Usually, this is the weekend I spend OFF THE WATER and sitting in a hammock–too many crazy July 4th’s on the Mississippi. But, since the family wanted to watch the fireworks on the lake this year,me and my no good brother in law from southern Wisconsin snuck out for an hour of fishing.
Once again, we found walleyes right away in approx. 9FOW with 5 fish on the night, largest being approx. 17 inches. The lake is loaded with 14.5 inchers this year-which will be good for the eaters come fall. Speed was approx. 2.5mph and #5 flicker shads have been the top producing crank so far this year with the color changing daily but for some reason they prefer this profile of bait. Line out has been 120 feet longlined off the back of the boat, planer boards work and spread the line, but I avoid them if possible-some guys love em. The best advice I can give is when you hit a fish, lock in a waypoint and keep your trail function on. That is the number one way for me to pattern these nomadic, roaming fish on the flats.
Overall, not bad for one hour fishing with a zillion boats buzzing around on the lake.
Sunday night I snuck out with Mr. Bluegill for a couple of hours. It took some time to find fish and on the night we ended up with 17 gills in the livewell between .5 and 1 pound with approx. 30-35 fish on the night (including 3 dandy smallies and a crappie). Our first spot was very slow and the lake was extremely churned from the days wind. Our 2nd spot was better, a deep water drop off some rock shoreline. This is a classic summer spot for us and we are sad to report that it was loaded with female bluegills still holding eggs, this does not bode well for any type of spawn. Overall, most the fish caught last night were female bluegills with only a handful of males. As Mr. Bluegill stated to me last month “This has been a strange year”. We are now just starting to find bluegills going into their summer patterns-something we usually see mid June. That tells me the bluegills tried for some time to spawn, but it just didn’t work out. The good news, is bluegills are very prolific and even a marginal spawn can still populate a lake. For some reason, my camera has left my boat and is sitting in the house somewhere–somebody send me a note so I remember to put it back in the boat.
Until next time, go fishing.
Jeremy