we made the short trip over to Chippewa on Saturday afternoon to celebrate a niece’s birthday. Of course, I HAD to bring the boat and get some time in on the water on Sunday. After cake and ice cream Saturday night, it was time to hit the pillow and get some rest.
The plan was to get out on the water by 7:00am but it took a bit more time to shake the cobwebs out. After a quick stop at the bait shop to grab some fatheads, we finally arrived at the Rod-N-Gun around 8:30. First, we wanted to hit my bro-in-law’s favorite spot, then hit a back-up spot, and wrap it up by trolling a large flat area that has produced well for me before. The water was running around 75 degrees and we were jigging minnows, pulling crawlers, and hanging crawlers under a slip-bobber rig in the first two spots. The first pic is of a chunky smallie my bro-in-law hooked up with in our first spot (sorry about the photo quality – took it with my cell phone…). The first spot yielded a few more smallies and nice 24″ pike for Scott and I managed to hook into two walleyes (a small 12″er and a nice 16″er), a rock-bass, and a tiny perch. The action was anything but fast-n-furious so we decided to hit the second spot around noon. I didn’t hold out much hope for this spot – fished that area a few times in the summer with very little action – but it was on the way back to the docks. All I can say is “WOW”!!! I’ve fished Wissota now for a few years and I’ve never had that much fun in the middle of summer! In two short hours, the two of us caught well over a dozen eyes (kept a nice two-man limit for dinner 
) but, for me, the highlight was tangling with a feisty 31″ pike (second picture). We had to call it quits when it became time to head to the docks and take ‘the girls’ (my daughter and two nieces) out for some summer-fun tubing. We never did pull out the trolling rods – just didn’t need to do it with the solid action we found jigging and rigging!
After the girls’ arms couldn’t hold on to the tube anymore, we did get back to Spot 2 for another hour or so and the walleye were still there and they were still snapping. We ended up catching another five walleye (biggest was a hair under 17″) and a couple of smallies. We closed out our day on Wissota with a pleasure cruise up to Mallards, a couple of adult beverages ( 
), and then headed back to the Rod-N-Gun.
All in all, it was an exceptionally good day on Wissota in the dog day’s of summer! I’m already looking at my calendar to see when I can make that trip again .
