Lake Wisconsin fishing report, 7-21-06

Friday, July 21st

Weather wise, my clients Steve Listle, Steve Wright and I enjoyed a perfect day on the water today. The fishing wasn’t to bad either. These two guys preferred to catch walleyes and saugers, but were flexible and more than willing to make the switch to panfish if the walleyes didn’t go.

If you take a look around the outdoors at this time of the year, you’ll notice that the there is no shortage of food for all the wild life. Deer, turkeys, squirrels, rabbits, ducks, geese and most other animals and birds all raise their young at this time of the year for a reason. Food is plentiful!

Guess what? Its just like that under the water in all of our lakes and streams as well.

Knowing this before we set out on the water was crucial. Past experience has taught me that walleyes and saugers can turn off in a hurry on Lake Wisconsin once the middle of summer arrives, so I made sure to bring along the ultra-lite tackle and panfish bait.

We spent the early morning hours trolling crankbaits with no success. Rather than switch over to crawler harnesses, we went straight to the ultral-lites and began casting into the shallows for panfish. It seemed as if the bluegills, crappies, smallies, white bass, sheepshead and even a few largemouth’s were just waiting for us there. They began biting immediately.

On the business end of our lines we tied a 1/32 oz jig/plastic tipped with a waxworm. Several different colors were putting fish in the boat. Red, pink, orange and chartreuse all seemed to work just fine. When they were really aggressive, you could catch them without the waxworm.

These two guys were truly having a blast and they could not believe how good the panfishing was in Lake Wisconsin. Many of our cast into the shallows would cause tiny minnows to scatter across the surface when the small jig/plastic combo would hit the water. The amount of baitfish in the water at this time of the year is just incredible. We literally saw a steady stream of tiny baitfish swimming along or just under the surface in most of the spots we were fishing. Many times they would come flying out of the water as white bass or smallies chased them around.

At one point, Steve Wright caught a little smallie and while in the process of removing the jig, it spit out 3 or 4 of these small baitfish. I took this opportunity to examine them up close and they definitely appear to be baby gizzard shad.

It looks like we’re in for a 2nd consecutive year of living with and extremely large number of young of the year gizzard shad in the Lake Wisconsin system.

Hopefully, and more than likely, the large number of one year old white bass will do what they do best and eliminate many of them before the end of summer. So if you haven’t seen these tiny baitfish already, you will soon.

These little guys are one of the biggest reasons why fish in Lake Wisconsin exhibit such tremendous growth rates. The Wisconsin DNR tells us that walleyes can grow to an amazing 17" long in just 3 to 4 years, saugers to 15" and crappies to 10" long in that same time frame.

So the next time your bemoaning the tough fishing due to all the baitfish, remember to that they are also responsible for the great fishing we enjoy at other times of the year when the baitfish are not so plentiful!

Good fishing out there guys and gals!

JWB