Menominee River – Pre & Post Spawn Walleyes

Last weekend, 90% of the fish we caught were still full of spawn and the bait of choice was a 3/16oz jig tipped with a ringworm or moxi. A blade bait was also good but definitely our 2nd choice.

This week, those two baits had to be perfect in order to get bit at all by the walleyes. Perfect color, weight, location and time. Anything else, and no walleye showing up on the other end of our line.

I was pretty sure they’re were plenty of fish using the same locations but getting them to bite was pretty difficult over the first portion of our weekend trip.

Switching to hair jigs tipped with magnum fatheads during the daytime was just the ticket. Though even this only seemed to work when the feeding period was in full swing. Off peak hours still were proving difficult to persuade fish to bite to say the least.

Another big change this weekend, 90% of the fish we were catching now were spawned out. This big spawners were holding in pretty much the same locations but it was pretty clear that a slight change in technique was going to be required to catch them.

Since Robb Porubsky and I didn’t have anything better to do than fish on this trip, we decided to fish the morning thru early afternoon period, take a break mid-afternoon and then return for the night shift.

That turned out to be a very, very good decision on our part. The night bite was pretty good right at sun set, then pretty dead until after 10:00pm. Between 10pm and 2:00am though, it was game on!

The new bait of choice that the fish couldn’t seem to resist….#8 husky jerks. There may have been some other sticks or cranks that would have worked as well. We tried a few others but didn’t find much else. Part of that was due to the fact that one guy was running up the numbers pretty bad and his buddy didn’t want to get left to far behind:)

In two days and two nights of fishing, we put close to 70 fish in the boat. Not huge numbers I realize but the really cool part was that the majority of those fish were over 24″ long or better. At one point last night we had 15 fish measuring 26″ or better. Our average size was simply awesome and since we had more than enough pictures already, those 26 inchers were getting tossed back much faster than normal with very little fan fare. Nothing much more than a passing comment noting that it was yet another 26 incher.

So even though 90% of these fish were spawned out, this trip is going to spur an awful lot of good memories as well as great expectations for future trips to this area.

This may be the end of this years pre-spawn walleye fishing for me, but it also the beginning of great expectations for next year.