Late Fall fishing on Lake Wisconsin

Saturday, November 11nth

Today was the day after the first snow storm of the year. We probably got 2-3" here around Lake Wisconsin. Not a lot, just enough to turn everything white around the lake. Made for a real pretty, but chilly boat ride early this morning.

(This 21" sauger was caught and released Sunday morning)

My guest today were Kevin Reynolds and his good friend Frank Gavin. Kevin spent a half day fishing crappies with me earlier in the year and wanted to get out after some walleyes and saugers.

The weather was a bit chilly in the early morning hours. A chilly north wind blowing about 10-15mph and air temperatures in the low 30’s was forcing us to keep our gloves and hats on.

Surface water temperatures were actually a bit warmer than last weekend and are now running right around 42 degrees in the main lake.

I decided to start the guys out with blade baits while I used a blade bait in one hand and a jig/minnow combo in the other. My intent was to quickly find out which bait they preferred today.

(The 20" sauger pictured here was also caught and released Sunday morning)

The first spot only produced one sauger, and was caught on a blade bait in 21′ of water. Despite several more passes through the same area, we could not get another fish in the boat.

Time to move on to another spot. Off we went.

The next spot produced three more fish in the first five minutes, all caught on blades in 18-20′ of water. This was looking good! I don’t remember how many fish we ended up catching at this spot, but we spent at least two hours fishing it over with blades before moving once again.

We finally moved on to the next spot when the bite died down.

Fishing was going to be a bit tougher for most of the rest of the day. I had explained to the guys earlier in the morning that we would get only two or three feeding windows at best, and when those feeding periods occur, you had better be where the fish are or your not going to do very well. So far, we were doing pretty good at being in the right spot.

The next several hours we picked up a fish here and a fish there. A few more keepers came on jig/minnow combo’s but most of the ones we caught during the middle of the day were small .

Around 3:30pm, things started to pick up again on the blade baits and the bite continued up until about a half hour before darkness set in. A few of these fish at the end of the day also came on jig/minnow combo’s. Nothing really fast but just steady enough to keep anyone from losing interest.

The end of the day seemed to come fast today. That’ll happen when the fish bite.

We ended up catching a total of 25 walleyes and saugers today. Twelve of those were between 15-20" long. None were over 20 inches but Frank did catch one very nice 19-1/2" sauger.

Nice job today guys! You two did a good job picking up the proper technique of jigging with a blade bait. Kevin and Frank, I enjoyed fishing with both of you guys and hope to see you back again sometime.

Sunday, November 12th

Jim and Jimmy Lawler spent this chilly Sunday morning fishing for walleyes and saugers on Lake Wisconsin from my boat.

The air temperature started out at about 30 degrees, which was a bit colder than yesterday, but the wind was non-existent in the early morning hours so it actually didn’t feel to bad out there.

Later on in the morning, south winds picked up and blew at around 10-15mph giving us a pretty good mid-morning chop on the water.

The walleyes and saugers didn’t quite co-operate as well as yesterday.

We started out hitting the same spots as yesterday. Jim and his son Jimmy each put a few fish in the boat jigging blades before things got tough for us.

They were not biting as good as yesterday, but if a guy kept at it, he could still pick up a few here and there. And that’s pretty much exactly what happened. I picked up a fish here and a fish there. Each time I caught one, I would give my rod to either Jim or Jimmy, hoping that this was the hot lure and they would be able to duplicate my success. Didn’t happen.

We ended up putting seven fish between 15 and 21 inches long in the boat and the guys ended up taking home four fish for the fry pan, and we released two 20 inch plus saugers all before 12:30pm, so it wasn’t really a bad day either.

Enjoyed meeting you Jim and Jimmy. Glad I was able to take you out on the lake you fished on when you were a youngster Jim! It’s always interesting to hear the stories of what the lake was like 20 or 30 or more years ago. Many of my clients have some very interesting stories or other bits of history that they share with me and it’s always something I very much look forward to hearing.

Thanks again for letting me be your fishing guide today!

Till next week, good luck out there guys and gals!