Lake Wisconsin Sauger Fishing

Monday, Nov 6th

This is the 4th day of my 5 day weekend fishing vacation. Well, it’s not exactly a vacation seeing as how I guided on the first three days. But today, I got a chance to go out on my own and check out a few new locations around the lake that I wouldn’t normally go to when guiding.

It means I’m probably not going to catch as many fish but it’s also the only way I’m going to find new spots.

It also means, more than likely anyway, that there won’t be any other boats around. Perfect! That’s a nice side benefit I can live with.

The first spot took a little over two hours to fish thoroughly enough to convince me that it had some potential anyway. One Sauger over 19" long will do that.

The next spot only took 45 minutes of fishing and sonar watching to convince me that potential was limited as far as late fall walleye and sauger fishing goes.

The 3rd and 4th spots produced another 19" sauger followed by a 17-1/2" walleye.

One thing I’m looking for is sharp drop-offs into deeper water. The deep water has to be at least 23-25 feet deep, and if the water is even deeper, so much the better.

Regardless of wether or not it’s a hump or shoreline break, the drop-off into deeper water must be a sharp one. If the drop-off tapers into deeper water too slowly, I don’t spend a lot of time fishing it. Drop-offs with stumps, rocks, boulders or fish cribs all increase the potential of any given spot.

Clearly these are not the only areas where you can find walleyes and saugers. They are some of the better ones as far as I’m concerned though and many times, its common to find a spot that holds good numbers of fish very near the areas described above.

The morning passed way to quickly and my solo trip was coming to and end to soon once again. Always does when you get wrapped up in your work.

All three fish were released today. We’ll all get a chance to catch them again tomorrow.

Tuesday, Nov 7th

The last day of my 5 day weekend fishing excursion. The last day always seems like it gets here twice as fast as Friday does during a regular work week. What the hell’s up with that anyway?

Oh well, still a damn good feeling to be out here in a boat instead of at work.

Dewey Schultz joined me and we had one goal in mind right from the start. We both wanted to catch a limit for the skittle. Catch and release is a very good thing, but once in a while, catch and keep can be even better. The first four days I didn’t take home a single fish. That was going to change today!

Dewey and I are both kind of competitive and of course, we both wanted to catch the most and biggest fish. Dewey proved he was no slouch at fall walleye and sauger fishing. All I had to do was put the boat over the fish and he was doing the rest just fine.

I gave Dewey a good blade to use, then grabbed a jigging rod for one hand and a blade in the other.

Didn’t take to long though, and I put down the jigging rod to concentrate on the blade. That had a lot to do with the fact that Dewey had taken a two fish lead on me with the blade I gave him.

About that time, the fish kind of petered out on the first spot. The next spot produced fish off and on again for us over the rest of the morning, and for a while, Dewey and I were about even on fish caught.

The early afternoon hours were kind of slow and we began to bounce around a bit before Dewey finally connected again on another dandy 19" sauger. I quickly responded with a 13-1/2" walleye. Yea, I know. Kind of wimpy compared to the fish he caught.

This little battle went on for the rest of the afternoon. Dewey did end up with one or two more legal size sauger than I did, but we both had a blast none the less.

All of our fish came from 18-22′ of water today. Surface water temperatures are still hanging around 40.5 degrees.

Most of our fish came on blades but the last couple at the end of the day were caught on a jig/minnow combo.

The last day turned out to be the best day of the five. What a great way to end a nice 5 day weekend. If only a guy could get a few more of those each year!

It was great fishing with you again Dewey. You were tough with the old fishing rod today!

Good luck out there everybody!