Lake Wisconsin November Walleyes & Saugers

Fishing this past Saturday was pretty good on Lake Wisconsin. It started out great when Roger Schneeberger landed a 25″ walleye on a blade bait as the morning sun was just about to poke above the horizon. Through out the rest of the morning, we also found a fair number of saugers in the 15-18″ size range willing to hit 4″ moxi’s on a 3/8oz precision jig head.

The afternoon was when the bite really started to heat up. We hit one of my usual spots and as soon as the first blade hit the bottom it was crushed by a fat 19-1/2″ sauger. Oddly enough, after that first big sauger, the blade bait pretty much died off. Fortunately for us, a 4″ chart/green core moxi took over and several more nice eaten size saugers were landed in short order.

As usual, Lake Wisconsin has produced yet another bumper crop of gizzard shad and with that many shad in the system, it just doesn’t take these fish long to eat as much as they want. The result is, feeding windows just don’t stay open very long.
But by running and gunning, and changing baits & colors often, we were still able to put a decent number of fish in the boat. It wasn’t easy fishing, but it’s still fun if you can land some decent fish here and there.
The morning crew from Wisconsin put eight keepers in the boat and the afternoon crew from Illinois matched them fish for fish. Sixteen keepers and one slot fish marks the best day we’ve had on the lake so far this fall.

With no trips booked for Sunday, good friend Kevin Key & I went on a scouting mission. One of those fun days where I get to fish anywhere I want and it doesn’t matter if we don’t catch fish.
We hit a bunch of those spots and as it turned out, we actually did catch quite a few fish. More than normal for sure. Most of those fish were not walleyes and saugers but white bass. And they took a big time liking to both blade baits and chart/green core moxi’s.
Instead of leaving them to look for walleyes and saugers, we decided to take full advantage and enjoy it. After all, its not like a good size white bass can’t put up a decent fight.
All in all, it was a pretty good weekend out on the lake.