Saturday March 11th,
Boy, what a difference a week makes! Last week I was fishing below the Wisconsin Dells dam in a snow storm and this week the temperature reached 59 degrees on Saturday while Dwayne Shultz and I fished the head waters of Lake Wisconsin. The wind blowing from the southeast was a bit stronger than I would have liked, but all in all, it was a pretty nice day and surface water temps warmed up to the low 40’s by late afternoon.
Dewey and I found the early going a little tough.
The first three spots we stopped and checked out didn’t produce any walleyes or saugers. Finally, sometime around 10:30am, Dewey set the hook and proceeded to bring a nice 17-1/2" sauger to the boat. It hit a jig/minnow combo. Shortly after, I caught a nice 17" sauger which hit a jig/twister tail combo. Then, everything went dead for an hour or so until the next two fish came back to back just like the first two. Both were 17-18" long.
A fish here and a fish there later in the afternoon was all we could muster. Between the two of us, we maybe had 10 bites of which we caught six. The good news, they were all between 17-18" long. No shorties!
18-22′ of water was the best depth for us today but one was caught in 15′ and another was caught out of 12′ of water.
Verically jigging plain painted jig/minnow combo’s and jig/twister tail combos caught all our fish. We did run some 3-way rigs. The jig on the bottom caught some fish but the trailer line never caught a single fish. We ran floaters and plain single hooks on the trailer line, both tipped with large fathead minnows.
Sunday, March 12th,
What a difference a day makes. The nice 59 degree weather of yesterday was gone and the early morning hours on the headwaters of Lake Wisconsin near Tiperrary found me sharing my boat with long time card playing buddies Mark "Buck" Pings and Wayne Henn.
Early morning saw us attempting to vertical jig while bracing up to a stiff, cold north wind. Gusts of wind blowing across the bow were making boat control difficult. More so than normal since my Minn Kota bow mount trolling motor was unwilling to take a left turn. I finally got tired of messing with it and decided to back troll with the T8 Yamaha instead.
Despite early difficulties with the wind, we found the fish more receptive to our offerings today. Yesterday, Dewey Shultz and I figured out what the best depths were and what baits they wanted. Today, with the help of novice walleye angler Wayne Henn, we discovered the correct jigging motion to activate a positive response from the fish below. By 10:30 this morning, we already had 5 nice saugers in the boat and Wayne had just caught a nice 20-1/4" walleye which we released after taking this photo.
Normally, you would think two guys with as much vertical jigging experience as myself and Buck would be giving lessens to someone like Wayne. But not today! Wayne was out-fishing us so bad, that we were both watching every move he made with the jigging rod and repeating the cadence as close as possible. For one day at least, Wayne was the walleye king on this part of the lake.
Next week, my guess is that jigging cadence will probably change and we’ll have to start over again, trying to figure it out. I might have to bring Wayne along.
Aside from the correct jigging cadence, another major difference from yesterday was the lack of fish caught on a minnow rig of any kind. We caught a total of 18 fish and the jig/minnow combo’s didn’t catch any of them. All were caught on a jig/twister tail combo.
Wayne not only caught his biggest walleye today, but also had his best walleye/sauger fishing trip ever.
A few other interesting facts from the last two days of fishing:
Of the 24 total fish we caught, only one was a walleye. (20.25" long)
Every fish was bigger than 15" long. Twenty four fish caught and all of them were between 15 and 20-1/4" long. No shorties!
This bite could last for another two weeks or the best fishing could be over in the next several days. Its a crapshoot this time of year on the head waters of Lake Wisconsin and the only way to know if there biting, is to go fishing and find out.
Good luck to all of you out there chasing early spring walleyes or saugers!
Glad to see the post pointed out that most of these fish were saugers. I thought for a minute my eyes were going bad while looking at the pic and then reading the title of the post.
Great report Joel! Those are some dandy, beautiful saugers. Did you notice a difference in water clarity in the two days? I have found that clarity on the Mississippi often explains the fish’s preferences for minnows/bait or plastics. I’m wondering if that holds true on other bodies of water.
Was wondering where you are launching your boat from ?
I guess in retrospect, I should have named the report, Lake Wisconsin head waters & early spring saugers. It certainly would have been more accurate.
John,
On Saturday, we had a stiff wind blowing up river and on Sunday, we had a stiff, cold wind blowing down river. The current did appear to be moving faster Sunday, but I didn’t really notice any difference in clarity. There could have been a small difference.
Now that you’ve made me aware of the association between dirty water and live bait, its much more likely that I will give it a bit more attention the next time I come across the situation.
The boat landing that we use is right on Tipperary Rd. I like the paved landing but there is also a gravel landing that many people use. They are both within one block of each other in the town of Dekorrah.
“Beware” the first pave boat landing. It is located on a 90 degree corner in the road. The landing is fine but the water is only about 1 to 2′ deep. Not good!
Especially, if you are already on the water and a big wind kicks up. Trying to get your boat out of that landing under adverse conditions is not fun!
JWB
Sounds like alot of fun. Good catch guys. What was the water temp if you got it?
nice catch
I grew up on lake wis.my folks use to own the 4 seasons resort on waylon grade in the early 60’s.I have been back many times to fish walleye’s.but not for spring run. 
see ya on the wave’s.FISH EAT SLEEP;;;
Surface water temperatures were running at 41 degrees.
I’d be willing to bet there going to go down before they go up.
JWB