Lake Wisconsin – Trolling up some Sows.

Got to spend some time in the boat today with my good buddy Pat Howard. We haven’t had a chance to fish together since pool 4 in March, so it was great to hook up again. We didn’t hit the water until around 10:00, and headed to a spot I haven’t fished yet this year but wanted to check out. Tried pulling some crawlers and picked up one keeper sauger, a small walleye, a perch, and sheephead. I wasn’t seeing the numbers or the size I was looking for so I made the call to go back to the area that has been producing some good sized fish for me the last few weeks pulling cranks on planer boards.

Got set up and started trolling and it was fairly slow to start. A short fish here and there but nothing to speak of. There was a lot of grass floating on the surface, and as I was cranking in a board as fast as I could to clear some grass, the bait stopped DEAD. I told Pat something big just smoked the bait, and the battle was on. It took a while to get the board to the boat, and as Pat was unhooking the board, the fish crossed over to the other side of the boat and started passing us. Any time I’ve had fish pass the boat, they have been pike or musky, so I was shocked when we got our first look at a very nice sized walleye. She made a couple more runs before she hit the bottom of the net. She taped out at 29.5 inches, but I didn’t get a chance to put her on the scale. As I was getting a measurement, she managed to catch me with her gill plate and sliced my thumb open from the tip to the first knuckle right down to the bone. Pat did a nice job releasing her for me while I uttered a few choice words, and then helped patch me up. I’m glad I carry a fully stocked first aid kit on board because it got put to good use today.

We continued running our same pattern, cycling through bait colors getting the preference of the day dialed in. As we went along, it became pretty clear that the preference of the walleye today was baits in black and gold, and firetiger for the big crappies you tend to pick up trolling on lake wisconsin. The sheephead don’t seem to have a real preference, but I found today that they really liked jointed shad raps in the red craw color. It is one of Joel Ballweg’s favorite colors, but it shows me no respect at all. To the left is one of the average sized trolling crappie you pick up on lake Wisconsin. I think we had 6 today.

As we started getting things dialed in, we identified a couple different spots that seemed to be holding the majority of the active fish and kept working between them. We picked up a couple nice slot sized walleye one right after the other, along with a couple keepers in about a 15 minute flurry that made it hard to keep all the rods in the water. For those not familiar with Lake Wisconsin, there is a protected slot for walleye and sauger. You can’t keep any fish between 20 and 28 inches. Here is one of the slot fish we picked up. Pat pretty much took over catching all the fish as I had a hard time handling things without the use of my left thumb. You never realize how much you use your thumb until you can’t.

We continued catching the occasional crappie, the all to frequent sheephead, and a good number of short fish. We got to the end of our run and started our turn. In the middle of the turn, with the inside boards at an almost dead stop, the tattle flag on the off-shore planer board slammed down and the board started heading back. Pat grabbed the rod and started the battle. It was give and take for a few minutes until we got the board off, and then the fish popped to the surface and we could see we had another healthy walleye, but it was barely hooked. It seemed like an eternity for Pat to get the fish in net range, and the bait came free as soon as the fish hit the net. The fish measured in at 27 3/4 inches, and was released nice and healthy to fight another day.

Thanks for making the drive down today Pat. It was nice spending a day in the boat with you again. You are welcome again any time. I’m glad we didn’t experience the normal Pat Howard fishless jinx you seem to carry around in your back pocket.

We lost one other big fish that came unbuttoned before we could get it to the boat. The bite wasn’t fast and furious for us today, but by dialing in the preferred color, we were able to put some very respectable fish in the boat. The hot colors for walleye today were black and gold flicker shads, and black gold sunset flicker shads. Unfortunately, the snags toward the end of the day ate my supply most of the way so an early run to the closest Fleet Farm 45 minutes away is in order tomorrow morning before hitting the lake with my daughter for a father’s day outing. She asked what I wanted for father’s day, and I said I just wanted her to spend the afternoon in the boat with me. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s outing.