The minnow bite has slowed down but the fish make the change to the live bait rigs and are surely eating those crawlers and leeches. We had one of the longest jig and minnow bites that I have seen and it was sure fun while it lasted but now it rigs and crankbaits. The fish are holding on just about any deep-water hump or bars located throughout the main lake. On MOnday I had the opportunity to fish with Doug Ziegler and hiss 10 year old son Andrew and even with the high in the upper fifties the fish cooperated very well for us. Here is one of the pics from the day. A mixed bag came from the leeches and crawlers.
Stucture fishing on Winnie can be some of the best fishing of the year for big fish, but some of the frustrating. Day in and out one can normally find fish on the humps or bars but getting them to bite each day can be an entirely different story. PAying very close attention to the details of each bite meaning depth, presentation, speed, line length will all help increase the odds in the action. The areas that have and continue to be the most successful for us are those small-humps with some of the deepest water near them. Here again is another picture from those deep water humps.
It seems that days where we have major changes in the weather those eaters will be all of the action and as the weather stablizes we will get into those larger slot fish again. On Monday it was one of those days that all we caught was perch, pike and 13-15 inch walleyes.
The presentation that I like when rigging is a simple set-up. We run a single hook with a 3-6 foot snell with a 3/8 oz sinker. When we are fishing crawlers, blowing the crawler up normally increase the number of bites and when using leeches I like to put a medium sized yellow bead infront of the hook. I point to remember when fishing rigs, If the fish is hooked deep, either cut the line at the mouth or try not to feed the fish much line when a bite is sensed. Fish fatality increases as we rig, simple because of the deeper hook sets. If the fish is bleeding, most cases the fish will die. Its great to be finally rigging and we will be cranking for those WInnie walleyes in the next week, stay tuned for the cranking report.