Lake Wissota opening weekend report

I don’t remember a Wisconsin opener in the recent past that was as beautiful as this past weekend. Even better is that the walleyes and crappies of Lake Wissota cooperated, so much so that our trip had to end when we ran out of bait!

I fished Sunday afternoon from 1:30 until around 8. I worked two spots, one in the yellow river arm and one in the Chip, and both had good numbers of active fish.

The Yellow River spot features a near-shore break from 4 ft down to around 9, and then a tapering flat from 9 to 12 ft. The first break is about 15 feet from shore, and the flat runs for maybe 100ft (?). The southerly breeze was hitting this shore perfectly, and we found eyes and a bonus 15″ smallie relating to the break. The presentation was to pitch 1/8 oz green jigs tipped with minnows up to shore, and then slowly work them off the break.

My spot in the Chip is a shallow sand flat (12′) that extends from shore, jutting into water that is 20′ deep or more. The bar has a bunch of cribs near the break to deeper water. We worked the edges of the bar with a vertical presentation, and again found good numbers of eyes in midafternoon, and these were replaced with a pod of beautiful crappies (10-12″) and smaller walleyes towards dusk.

By the end of our opening trip, we boated well in excess of 20 walleyes (we stopped counting at 20), with 3 in the slot, 3 at that magic 13 3/4 inch mark that is a Wissota keeper, and scads of 10-13″ fish. We had in the neighborhood of 10 crappies that would have been easy keepers, a smallie and a rock bass. Everybody that visited the boat is still swimming this morning. Temps in the yellow river area were all above 60, with my spot featuring temps of 63-64. The Chip is cooler, with temps closer to 59 (it was around 61 by Mallard). The main lake was around 60-61, but I just ran through it and didn’t fish.

Well, that’s my opening weekend report. How did everyeone else do??

I had been planning on getting my truck back on Friday, but didn’t so I still haven’t been able to make it out. I didn’t even get a chance to wet a line….I was very disappointed. I am hoping to get my truck this week and will try to make it out soon….great report Jason.

Nice report Brooktrout. Was wondering how you feel the Wissota walleye fishery is, in general, doing? Don’t know much of anything about Wissota and being from Osseo, it would be a much closer venue than taking over an hour to the big river on short notice.

The walleye fishery on Wissota is (1) very healthy, and (2) heavily weighted towards smaller fish. My catch on Sunday is representative. Lots and lots (and lots) of skinny 10-13″ fish. Once they hit 13-14″ they start to fill out a bit, but of course, this is the length where most fish are kept on Wissota (the limit is 3, with no kill 14-18″, one fish allowed > 18″). As I mentioned in my report, the prime Wissota keeper is a chunky 13 3/4″ fish. The numbers drop off dramatically at 14-15″. We usually contact a few handfulls of fish in the high teens during June and July. In 3 years of fishing Wissota seriously, I’ve had 3 fish over 20″, with the biggest at 24″. All of those nicer eyes have been early and late season fish.

The 2004 fall survey numbers from the GLIFWC are consistent with these observations:

Walleyes 0-12″: 827

12-13″: 60

13-14″: 24

14-15″: 12

15-20″: 5

> 20″: 0

So, is Wissota a great place to get bit and find some fish for the pan? Undoubtedly. Is it a good multispecies system, where everything from cats to ‘skis are likely to see the net during a season’s time? Assuredly. Is it a place where you have a good shot at numbers of quality 3+ lb eyes on a consistent basis…well, it may be, but not for me. If I want to chase those kinds of fish, I choose pools 4 or 5, but like you, I have to balance that against driving time and gas prices. Now that the season is open, I’ll do about 2/3 of my trips to Wissota, and the balance pulling cranks on Pepin. Once November rolls around, it’s back to the big river.

Went out Saturday for a couple hours, caught a couple crappies under floats. Had the gf with so decided to take her for a boat ride up the paint creek, very nice area up there. Feels like your down in the dells area. Fishing was slow for me. Jason are you heading out any night this week? Thanks for the report!

Eric: Probably no Wissota trips this week, as we’re heading up to Alexandria MN on Friday, and a mid-week trip would be a tough sell at home. If I get a late-breaking opportunity, I’ll let you know.

Also, sent you a PM.

Alex for the opener for the MN opener? Goodluck! Sully and I are also heading north for MN opener. I hope to hit the lake (wissota) this week, and will have updates.

Just goes to show you the mortality rates for those walleyes in the 14-18″ slot where you can’t keep them.

For those of us who like data, here’s some more Wissota walleye survey data from the GLIFWC:

2003

0-12″: 1296

12-13″: 81

13-14″ 25

14-15″: 11

15-20″: 25

> 20″: 1

Fall 2002
0-12″: 1754
12-13″: 11
13-14″: 6
14-15″: 6
15-20″: 0
> 20″: 0

Fall 2001
0-12″: 1268
12-13″: 53
13-14″: 34
14-15″: 27
15-20″: 17
> 20″: 2

One thing to note is that those studies were targeted to measure the number of year 0 and year 1 walleye numbers.

Absolutely correct!

Great thread guys just a note I spoke to the Dnr guys while tagging sturgeon they had just completed the netting the walleye spawn a couple of weeks earlier and I was told the size are getting up there with a good number of fish up to 28inches, thats the good news the interesting part and not so good for the larger eye fisherman was the nets also had so many small 2 to 3in perch in them that they had to count by volume/pounds instead of each individual fish. Which would explain why its so hard to catch the larger eye’s. It was their opinion that the larger eyes will be few and far between with so many perfect forage perch available to them.
Chippman