Lake Wisconsin – June 12th

Was joined in the boat this morning by Everett Beutler and Brad Topping to do some walleye fishing on Lake Wisconsin. Water temps were down 8 degrees since Wednesday, which slowed the bite down quite a bit from what it was earlier in the week. I have known Everett for a number of years, and Brad is a childhood friend of Everett’s who now lives in Las Vegas and was back in the area visiting. Everett paid for the trip, but he only wanted to ride in the bow and let Brad catch fish, since Brad hadn’t caught a walleye in about 40+ years, and had never caught one over about 20″. We started the morning with some jigging and lindy rigging with crawlers, but were not able to put much in the boat other than some short walleye and sauger and a lot of sheephead. Pulling Flicker Shads and Shad Raps behind planer boards had been working for me earlier in the week so we decided to switch to trolling after about an hour and a half. We caught quite a few short fish and a couple big crappie right off the bat. Shortly after, we hooked up on what looked to be a very nice fish based on how fast the board took off in the other direction. After a good tussle, Brad was able to boat a new personal best 28.5 inch walleye. The fish fell victim to my favorite bait for Lake Wisconsin, a #7 blue tiger flicker shad.

We managed a few more short fish, but before we knew it, the morning was done and it was time to head back to the launch. Since I only had the morning booked, I had my good buddy Kevin Sime (Whiskerkev) hop in for the afternoon with his twin 6 year old boys Jonas and Thomas. The goal for the afternoon was to get each of the boys a good fish or two so we could keep building their enjoyment of fishing. The bite continued to be slow, but I knew if we kept at it, we would accomplish our goal. After a couple short fish, we finally hooked up on a decent fish. It was Jonas’ turn to bring in the fish and he fought it like a champ. He needed a little assistance managing the 8 foot planer board rod, but he did the bulk of the work and was rewarded with a nice 22 inch walleye.

It took a bit of time and numerous short fish before we got Thomas into a keeper sized fish, but we got the job done. His first one was a 15 1/2 inch sauger that went home for dinner, followed a bit later by a nice 17 inch sauger that also went home so Kevin could eat some fish as well. One thing I learned today was that 6 year old boys, though fond of puppies and mud puddles, don’t really enjoy holding fish with sharp gill plates and spiny fins.

We also managed one nice big crappie in the afternoon to complete the evening meal for Kevin and the boys. The color pattern for me this year so far for pulling cranks has been pretty simple. The fish will hit pretty much any color crank as long as its blue. The 17 inch sauger came on a #5 fire tiger shad rap, but that was the exception. Aside from that fish, almost everything else came on either a blue tiger flicker shad in size 5 or 7, or a Shad Rap RS size 5 or 7 in the blue shad color.

Even though the bite was somewhat slow, persistence paid off today with some decent fish, and some good memories for all involved.