October is one of my favorite months of the year. There’s so many outdoor activity you can do. Deer bowhunting is in full swing if you like to hunt or how about duck hunting which opened Saturday at noon. Or go watch the Badgers or even the Packers. But what I like to do is go walleye fishing, every year I get all excited when October comes around waiting for that fall feed that the walleyes go on, big walleye. I plan to fish the whole weekend I told the wife and that’s what I did. Saturday I started at 9:30am and fished to 6:30pm. My plan was to hit as many spots I could to fine the fish and then really hit those spots that I found fish on Sunday. I really thought it was going to take me all day to fine the fish and it did. I didn’t get my first keeper walleye untill 1:00pm. I caught lots of small fish but nothing big. I started off using river rigs with #7 silver floating rapala drifting the current and using my trolling motor to help my boat along, that’s how I located the fish. Once I found the fish I would start vertical jigging and that’s how I got this nice 26 incher on the right and a few nice eater fish for dinner. I used Zone-R jigs by Fin-tech tackle company in a 3/8oz glow/green color tipped with a large fathead minnow. My fish were caught from 6 to 12 feet of water with a hard bottom was key.
On Sunday I had a new plan. I knew where the fish were so the hard part is done if they stay there. And there was one key point I saw when I was cleaning the 17 and 18 inch walleyes is that they all had 3 to 5 inch sheepheads in there bellies. So on Sunday I used big three to five inch shinners instead of fatheads. Yep that made the difference, I vertical jigged all day with big shinner and still used Zone-R jigs and my favorte glow/green and that’s how I caught this nice 23 inch walleye on the left.
I found out that the fish were moving or they would just quit bitting so that did make me keep on the move with them. Or when other anglers would move in on me I would move to my next spot and that would pay off with fish like this nice fat 24 incher on the right. All and all I have a great day fishing and wish Dale my friend would not of canceled out that day because he missed out of a day of fishing that I sure will not forget for a while.
At one time I was getting so many big fish I thought I was not going to get any eater fish for the wife. When the bite did slow I gave up the vertical jigging and went to casting 1/4oz glow/green nuckle ball jigs with 4 inch chart/ringworm just before dark in the shallow by wood thinking the fish moved in shallow and that did pay off for some eater fish for the wife. Oh yeah I did listen to them Packers on my radio win. GO PACK. Tight lines, set him hard, get the net, see ya on the river.