Spent last Friday, Saturday & Sunday morning on the Menominee River in Marinette, Wisconsin chasing walleyes with Dan Miller. Michael Collins (aka Greybeard) was kind enough to invite us to stay with him at his log cabin along with a couple other die hard walleye fishermen. Kind of a walleye fishing junkies get-away type atmosphere where you fish hard all day, get home after dark, whip up some supper and then pass out from "fresh air poisioning". (Greybeard terminology)
Normally, you have quite a few choices when you come to the far northeast corner of Wisconsin to fish walleyes. You can choose between the Oconto, Peshtigo or the Menominee rivers or you can head out into Green Bay and try your hand and trolling up some of the bigger walleyes.
Our choices were somewhat limited though as the bay was still ice covered and the Peshtigo river really isn’t big enough or deep enough for a big boat until it fills with spring run-off, which it hadn’t yet.
So we decided to work over the Menominee River all three days.
The first day was a bit slow for our boat as we only managed to put five walleyes on-board using a combination of jigs & ringworms, blades and 3-waying stick baits. 3-ways didn’t actually catch any fish for us but not for a lack of trying.
Greybeards boat did better using ringworms and Bob’s boat did better than us using hair jigs tipped with minnows. I really don’t remember the numbers but I do know they caught more fish than we did.
Saturday we got on a much more consistent bite. Michael was boating a fair number of fish using ring worms again but for whatever reason, that just wasn’t cutting it for our boat. Where we were anchored, it seemed to me a perfect place to try pitching blade baits, which is something I’ve never done with any success up to this point. It didn’t take long to figure out that blades were going to work and quite well at that.
My top three blades for the day were 1/4oz B3 blades from B’Fish’N Tackle. Glow Perch worked best during the mid-day hours followed by Green Glow Tiger and then Orange Glow Tiger finished off the good bite late in the afternoon. I did modify the glow perch slightly by using a red magic marker to put a single horizontal line right down the side of it but we did catch fish on non-modified glow perch blades as well.
All our fish could have been cut out with a cookie cutter. By that I mean they all ranged between 18" on the small end to 22-1/2" on the large end. We missed out on the run of big fish this year.
Michael did pop a 24" and a 28" walleye but since he’s still up there, I’m not sure when he will post pictures.
That guy is a poster child for what I want my retirement to be like!
More cookie cutter walleyes from the Menominee River.
Another great report with some quality photo’s . Thanks for sharing Joel
Looks like fun Joel.
Those are some very healthy looking cookies! Looks like a great time was had
Nice report Joel, and it was good seeing you and Dan at Michaels cabin this year.
From Jeff
Nice fish & report
Thanks for the Report Joel!! I love that cookie cutter size of fish, the bite good and fight hard!!
Especially in current!
Whoever said walleyes don’t fight, surely wasn’t catching them in current. These fish put up a great fight.
Talked with Michael last night on the phone. Sounds like we should have stayed up there this week. He’s starting to get into the bigger fish along with good numbers of the cookie cutters.
Joel, you’re killin me… cookie cutter fish
Sounds like one heck of a bite! We still have quite a bit of ice in my area. I can’t wait to get the boat wet.
Keep up the good work Joel
Hey Joe! It can be a heck of a bite but the people who are killing me are those guys still up in that area pounding 24’s, 25’s, 26’s, 27’s, 28’s and bigger walleyes. Nothing wrong with catching cookie cutters but we did miss that big fish bite.
There is no river for them eyes to hide in from you Joel, another great read and pictures
Yes, it was great fun this spring with nice numbers of fish but not as many big ones…..yet. Great fun to sit around the cabin at night with a full belly and a cold one and tell stories. Came home after two weeks due to unpleasant weather and snow. Hope to go back again soon but heard the coho have shown up in WI already so will have to make a hard decision.
The picture with the hose describes the weather we dealt with. We forgot to completely turn off the hose at the cleaning table and created the stalagmite ice cicle over night.
I plan to give the blades a little more time but hard to give up the ringworms that ease my “tic-itis”.
Michael
grey beard whats that third to last picture of?
The shear numbers of walleyes you guys put in the boat after we left was nothing short of phenomenal and incredible. And considering that most of those fish were at or over 20″ long…..simply awesome!
Every fisherman who works hard to give himself and his family a comfortable retirement, deserves a fishing trip with that kind of success.
More than once, I contemplated getting myself in trouble at work and at home by figuring out a way to go back up there after receiving another one of your text.
Congrats on a fantastic walleye fishing trip Michael!
Great read Joel.
Been far too many years since I’ve fished that river. 
Glad you got in to some fish, too bad you missed the big fish run tho……..great pics btw