Lake Wisconsin late Fall Saugers & Walleyes

Late fall saugers and walleyes are hit and miss on Lake Wisconsin so far this year. As the season gets later and later, it seems to be more hit than miss though.

Most fish are being caught on blades in 18-23′ of water, but every other outing or so, jigs and minnows can still produce quite well.

These fish are very fat and healthy. They are definitely taking advantage of the large population of gizzard shad in the system.

This 20" sauger was released after having it’s picture taken.

Friday, Nov 3rd

Spent a very cold morning fishing with Jim Rhodes and Arthur Harris. We started out at 9:00am due to the frigid overnight temperatures. But even then, you didn’t want to leave your hands out of your gloves for any length of time or the cold wind would pull the warmth out of them no time flat. Despite the cold weather, the fish were there and we probably should have caught a few more.

I brought the first one to the boat, but nobody wanted to net it and thats where she came off. It looked like a good eaten size walleye, probably around 16-17" long.

Jim’s been with me before and does plenty of fishing on his own as well. After a couple of quick pointers, Jim was off and fishing on his own just fine.

This was all new to Arthur though, and the learning curve was pretty evident. But everyone has to start somewhere.

I was explaning to Arthur the proper technique for a jig and minnow, and he was working the rig at the same time when it was evident that he had a bite.

"Set the hook" I said! There was a hesitation, so I said it again, "Set the hook, Arthur"! Still a hesitation. Seemed as though Arthur didn’t really believe he had a bite. "Arthur, Set the Hook"! And so, Arthur finally set the hook. Guess what? That sauger was still there and he did in fact catch himself a very nice, fat 18" sauger.

Not every fish waited around for us to set the hook though, and the end result was a few less fish than what we should have ended up with.

The guys still took home four fish between 15 and 18-1/2 inches, which isn’t bad for a few hours fishing.

Jim, as always, it was fun fising with you again. Your going to have to bring Arthur back though for another lesson or two. Arthur, it was a pleasure to meet you as well, and I’m glad you were able to catch a legal size sauger on your first late fall walleye fishing trip to Lake Wisconsin.

Saturday, Nov 4th

Saturday saw warmer temperatures and cloudy skies. Surface water temperatures in the main lake area’s of Lake Wisconsin were now running between 40 and 41.5 degrees.

Fred and Brandon Infelise were back for a weekend of late fall walleye and sauger fishing. They fished with me earlier this year at the end of the early fall crappie bite, and now they wanted to try their hand at catching walleye and saugers.

We left the pier around 8:00am after the guys had an early morning breakfast at Fitz’s restaurant in Okee! I usually like to start earlier than that, but when they said they were going to Fitz’s first, well, it kind of made me wish I had the time to run over there and join them. Fitz’s has good food!

We started out with jigs, but the fish seemed to want blades more than jigs. So we used both, and by the end of the day, it appeared as though the blades had a slight advantage over the jigs. But Brandon in particular didn’t do to bad with a jig and minnow.

Overall, we brought 18 different walleyes and saugers in the boat today. I know this for a fact only because I’m particapating in a study for the DNR. And as such, I have to record the length of every single one of them, regardless of how long or short they are. And in today’s case, short was the right word for most of them.

Only four of the eighteen were over 15" long.

At least we know there’s a pretty good crop of walleyes and saugers coming up for the future.

The guys are going out again tomorrow morning though, so we’ll get another crack at the bigger ones then.

Sunday, Nov 5th

Brandon, Fred and I left the pier at 8:15am this morning is search of better size walleyes and saugers than what we were catching yesterday.

Fred and I decided to work blades and Brandon was going to stay with a jig/minnow combo.

For the first couple of hours, we caught nothing at all. It was close to 11:00am before I finally connected on a nice 19-1/2" sauger. The second one came all of 5 minutes later and measured 19" long. Those two fish were released right after they had there picture taken with me.

I asked Brandon if he wanted to try a blade, but he decided to stay with the jig a little longer.

10 minutes later and I connected again, this time with a 17" sauger. Now Brandon was ready to switch. I traded rods with him and switched to a different blade on Fred’s line also. Then switched the jig over to a blade and got back to fishing. It took a little longer this time, but Brandon finally pulled in a very nice 18-1/2" sauger.

We never did go back to jigs and every half hour or so, we would connect with another nice eaten size walleye or sauger.

We called it a day at 2:00pm. The final tally for a little over 5 hours of fishing was seven walleyes and saugers of which six were between 16-1/2 and 19-1/2" long.

Quite a difference from yesterday.

It was good to fish with you again Fred and Brandon. Hope to see you guys back again next year!

Take care and good luck to all the hard cores out there who refuse to put away the boat until there is ice on the lake!