Lake Wisconsin Fall Walleye/Sauger Fishing

Fishing for walleyes & saugers on Lake Wisconsin is definitely better this fall than it was last fall. Last fall the fishing was terrible. Extended periods of high water and an over abundance of gizzard shad made for the worst fall walleye fishing we’ve seen in a long time.
The extended period of high water caused many fish to swim upstream into the river and no explanation is needed for the effects of to many gizzard shad.

This fall we seem to be over run with small walleyes & saugers. Recruitment of small fish has obviously been very, very good the past few years. There are plenty of keeper size and upper end slot fish in this system but right now, they’re playing hard to get.
The size of the fish caught can change quite a bit from day to day and it’s seemingly impossible to predict. One day we caught 50 fish with five keepers, and the following morning we caught eight fish of which six were keepers.
The spots we fished were pretty much the same as were the baits on the ends of our lines, but the results were quite a bit different.

In October, the best baits for my boat were Precision Jigs tipped with meat. Green Tiger, Sour Apple and Orange Chartreuse were our top jig colors with Purple Pearl also producing on a few outings.
Hair jigs also put some fish in the boat but not as consistently. For plastics, the 4″ moxi caught some fish for us as well but to this point, the plastic bite has been very sporadic and not as good as a precision jig tipped with a large minnow. That may be in part to a lack of current in the lake right now or it may just be that we need some colder water to spark the plastic bite.

Colder weather in November dropped water temps down below 50 degrees and blade baits have started to produce as well or better than jigs but that seems to change day by day and even hour by hour.
One of our better blades this past Sunday was the 1/2oz gold plated B3 blade bait.
Finally, trolling crank baits on lead core has also been producing pretty well on any given day.
The hardest part so far this fall has been trying to figure out which of the techniques are going to put the most keeper size fish in the boat. On many days, it’s been a combination of several.
Lake Wisconsin is not a huge system and for as long as I’ve been fishing here, it’s been very cyclical. The good news for those of us who love to fish here is, it appears to be on the upswing once again.