Lake Wisconsin, Late Report for wkend of 10/9/04

By Joel Ballweg 0

Lake Wisconsin walleyes, saugers and crappies are starting to become more active now that the water is cooling down more. Surface water temps were running in the upper 50 degree range on the weekend of Oct. 9nth and 10nth.

Night crawlers have now been replaced by large minnows as the #1 go to live bait.

This picture shows a few of the walleyes, saugers and crappies we caught today.

Our technique for locating these fish was to troll live bait rigs behind bottom bouncers. Once we found and area with active fish, we switched over to jigs and minnows and began working thru the area a little slower.

Both the walleyes and crappie fell victim to this approach.

Here is one of several nice crappie Nancy caught today.

On Sunday, Oct. 10nth, I talked my buddy Kevin Key out of his schedule duck hunting trip and into my boat for a day chasing fall walleyes and crappies. It really wasn’t very hard and within 10 minutes Kevin knew he made a good decision when he caught and released this beautiful 15-1/4" crappie. Nice fish Kev!

Shortly after, I popped this nice 20-1/4" sauger. It was also quickly relased.

We skipped the bottom bouncers today and went right to the jigs. It payed off in the morning but by 10:30, we had the bouncers back on when our fish shut down.

Overall, the walleyes and saugers were a bit sluggish today. Fortunately, the crappies more than made up for it and Kevin ended up taking home a dozen to share with his family.

Good luck out there!

JWB

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Joel Ballweg

56, Married (Nancy) no children, 1 yellow lab. Professional Fishing Guide on Lake Wisconsin for past 10 years

0 Comments

  3. It’s hard to get a crappie to look as big as it really is in a picture… but that one holds up to the camera just fine. What a slab!

  4. Yes. A guy could really have blast tying into crappies like that. Those are a crappie fishermans dream. Wish they were always that big. Thanks, Bill

  5. We are very fortunate to have these large crappies in our system.
    They are always welcome when they show up on the end of our line.
    I often wonder if it would be better to actually target them and build my guide service around the crappies instead of the walleye and sauger.
    JWB

  6. All 3 species sound great. Some people want the walleye/sauger and then there are those that chase mostly crappie and it looks like you can provide what they want. More options/offerings in your favor=better guide business.
    Thanks, Bill

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