Walleyes and saugers on Lake Wisconsin have put on the feed bag.
The past two days of fishing on Lake Wisconsin was awesome!. A total of 98 walleyes and sauger were brought into the boat. Twenty three of those were between 15 and 19" long. Nothing big, but lots of action!
Saturday, June 2nd
Scott Wright & Jim Linder have been friends for a long time. Scott lives in Middleton, WI and Jim lives up in Wausau, WI. Even though they live a couple of hours apart, it sounded as though they managed to get together on a pretty regular basis. Today they were spending time together in my fishing boat. Scott had planned and booked this trip back in December of 2006 and they both were more than ready to get out on the water and catch some walleyes.
Within an hour after arriving at our first spot, we got chased back off the lake by a thunder storm.
A half hour later, we left the launch site for a 2nd time and despite quite a bit of rain, we never did see or hear anymore lightning or thunder.
The fish didn’t seem to be bothered in the least bit by all the bad weather activity over the past few days. We ran out enough line on the crankbaits to tick bottom in 12′-15′ of water and the walleyes responded almost immediately. Some fine tuning to figure out the the best color pattern for the day was about all that we needed to do. After that, it was troll, troll, troll!
The walleyes were hot to. One after another was coming over the side of the boat. Actually, several did fall off or come off on there way into the boat but the action was steady right up till about 1:00pm or so. That’s when the clouds cleared up just enough to let some hot sun shine through.
And that’s when we switched over to crawler rigs. We slowed trolled them behind bottom bouncers along the same 12-15′ depths. The action was slower for most of the afternoon, but the guys still managed to pull in fish on a fairly regular basis and they ended up with a nice limit of eaten size walleyes and saugers.
Looking back on it, I would say that nobody in this boat appeared to be bothered much by all the rain. It kept most of the recreational traffic at bay and it appeared to make the walleyes more active and willing to bite. The guys were sending verbal jabs back and forth as they were catching fish and in my opinion, they sure looked like they were having a great time.
For me, when I see the clients having fun and catching fish, that’s about as good as it gets!
The little yellow data recording booklet that Tim Larsen sent me at the beginning of the year got another major workout today. The total for the day was 21 saugers, 26 walleyes and 3 crappies. We also caught some sheapshead and stripers, but not very many.
Scott and Jim, at your age, that’s probably about as much fun as you can have while sitting in the rain. Glad you guys chose "Ballwegs Guide Service" cause I sure enjoyed spending the day fishing with the two of you.
Good luck and hope to see you guys again!
Sunday, June 3rd
After the day we had yesterday on Lake Wisconsin, I was really wondering if they would be just as hot today. Dewey Schultz and Kim Christians were my guest today. Dewey is a repeat client and proved his fish catching ability to me last fall when he narrowly out fished me in my own boat. Ouch!
Kim had a few tricks of his own as it turned out and I’m pretty sure he won the battle today. These two guys had never met before today, but Kim wanted to get out fishing with me and Dewey was nice enough to let him come along on this trip.
The fish were still right where we left them yesterday and there activity level was still on high. All we had to do was let out enough line so that the crankbaits would occasionally tick bottom, and they would snap it up. Most of them in the morning hours were on the small side and only a few were over the 15" minimum limit for keepers. It didn’t really matter though because even when these two guys finally did get one or two that were of legal size, they just put it back in the lake anyway.
Cloudy skies would occasionally open up just enough to let a bit of sun shine through but we did have to keep a close eye on one storm that rolled through about 10:00am but we never did leave the lake.We got rained on pretty hard and the wind blew quite strong for awhile but in the end, nothing of any consequence appeared to be on its way.
After that storm blew through, we started to move around a bit. On our first pass through one area, Kim hooked up with what appeared to be a very big walleye. We even got a glimpse of this fish a couple of times and I was pretty sure it was a walleye. But after a very good battle, somehow it magically turned into a channel catfish. Dang it all! Sure did look like a walleye!
Every spot we checked had fish on it. Mostly small ones but a few over 15" here and there. When there preference for crankbaits slowed down, we switched over to the crawler rigs. The rate at which they caught fish was a bit slower, but they were still picking them up here and there.
Later in the afternoon, we switched back over to crankbaits. We were still targeting that 10-15′ zone and the guys were still catching a few fish. I debated staying at that spot and hoping things would pick up again for the last few hours of the afternoon, but decided instead to try a different spot. That would prove to be my best decision of the day.
The last spot we fished wasn’t really any different than all the others except in one respect. It held bigger fish and they were very active. Almost all of the fish Dewey and Kim caught over the last two hours were between 15 and 19" long.
Over the course of the day, these two guys caught 20 saugers, 31 walleyes, 2 crappies, 1 channel cat and 1 largemouth which Kim caught when his lure was hanging over the side of the boat. He set it there to net a fish for Dewey and that little bass came right up next to the boat and smacked it. Of those 51 walleyes and saugers, 13 were between 15 and 19" long. Dewey and Kim did end up keeping seven for a meal.
Great to fish with you again Dewy and it was nice to meet and fish with you also Kim.
Hope all the rest of you got a chance to capitalize on the good bite. If not, better get out there and get them while there hot!
Good luck everyone!
Boog