Lake Wisconsin Fall Crappie Fishing Report

Weekend of September 22nd

The warmer weather that we had over the past week had a positive affect on the crappie fishing. We didn’t put up huge numbers or lots of big fish but the bite was fairly steady through out the course of the day and a few big slabs showed up on the ends of our lines as well.

Those who went out for a full day were putting between 35 and 45 crappies in the boat and most of those fish measured 9 to 10 inches. I might add that all of these crappies are quite thick for there size. Along with the crappies, lots of bluegills and white bass also found there way into the boat. Many of the white bass are pretty good size fish and they do put up a real nice fight.
Sheepshead of course are still making their presence felt each day as well but the best catch of the weekend was made by Ray Zurawski who won the battle with a 19″ walleye on Sunday. Normally that wouldn’t be all that special of a catch, but because he was using an ultra light rod rigged with 4lb test line, landing this fish was much more difficult. Congratulations on a fine catch Ray!
Ray’s wife Barb has actually been fishing much longer than Ray and she is the one who showed Ray how to fish years ago when they first met. Their children gave them this guided fishing trip to help them celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and Barb made the most of it when she landed one of the best crappies caught by anyone in my boat this fall. After several photo’s were snapped, she released it back in the waters of Lake Wisconsin. Ray and Barb both prefer to eat the averages size crappies and since they were catching plenty of those, she just didn’t see the point in keeping any big ones. Nice catch Barb and thanks much for releasing it!

On Saturday, Doug Kuiper and Travis Johnson spent the morning catching crappies, bluegills and white bass with me. Doug went out with me for a couple of hours last weekend and he picked up right where he left off. Travis took a little while to get the hang of it but he started to catch on as the morning wore on. Doug caught his largest crappie to date and intends to have it displayed on the wall of his office. Congratulations on a fine catch Doug!

Randy Scott has fished with me a couple of times over the past two years. His usual partner is Brian Ott, who they claim to be the sheepshead king….. baaa~baaa. Sorry Brian, they made me do it!
Doug Musser was substituting for Brian on Friday and he picked a pretty good day overall for his first ever trip to Lake Wisconsin. Aside from the wind, the fishing was pretty good. Randy and Doug put over 40 crappies in the boat.
I did see the forecast and planned ahead. The anchor, which hasn’t seen the inside of my boat in a long time, was in the boat today. It took us awhile to get the anchor to hold in the spot we wanted to fish but it did finally get a good grip on the bottom. It held pretty good for about 20 minutes before the rope broke under the stress of white caps pounding the bow of the boat. That’s usually a pretty good indicator that its time to move on to another spot!
We had to battle that wind for the rest of the day but when the fish are biting, tough weather conditions don’t seem quite as bad.
All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good weekend and everyone enjoyed catching crappies, bluegills, white bass, sheepshead and even the occasional walleye.
Hope you all had as much fun out there as we did and if not, there’s always next weekend!

Boog