Lake Wisconsin Muskies, Northerns, Walleyes & more

Jeff Zappia & Lester Herman are a couple of pretty good walleye anglers who wanted to sample the walleye and sauger fishing on Lake Wisconsin. If possible, they wanted to learn a new trick or two while they were at it. Neither one had ever slow trolled crawler rigs and since I didn’t think we would have a strong crank bait bite anyway this afternoon, that’s what we started with.
That turned out to be a good choice for Lester especially. Less than a hour into the trip, Lester fought it out with a dandy walleye. It took a while, but he finally brought a gorgeous looking 28 inch walleye to the net. Shortly after that I’m pretty sure they could hear us on the other end of the reservoir. We did quite a bit of hoot-en and holler-en there for a minute or two.
The smiles and adrenaline rush lasted long after all the pictures were taken and the big fish was released. We all pretty much knew that no matter what happened the rest of the day, this trip was already a good one. The bite was pretty slow after that, but we did put one more keeper in the box at that first spot.

Later in the afternoon, we switched it up and trolled crank baits. The first two or three spots didn’t produce much more than baby walleyes and white bass.
The last spot we hit produced a real nice slot size walleye for Jeff so we immediately turned the boat around and went back thru it the other way. Wasn’t long and Jeff was hooked up with an even bigger fish. This time the battle lasted considerably longer and we were all pretty sure this was no walleye. Eventually, Jeff brought this 26 inch catfish to the net.
We still had time for one last pass and this time Lester scored on a keeper walleye of 17 inches. With the sun getting lower in the sky, we all agreed that it was time to pick up our lines and point this boat towards the landing where we came from.
I’m pretty sure Jeff, Lester and I were all feeling pretty good about how this day turned out. There really aren’t many things that feel as good as the ride back to the boat landing after a really good day of walleye fishing.
Thanks again for the great day guys. I truly did enjoy this day!
(The trip above was on Sunday afternoon 5-18-08)

Saturday, 5-17-08

First question I asked Art Green and Mike Smith this morning was this:
Do you want to troll crank baits and try for some bigger fish or would you rather fish with crawlers and go for numbers? There answer was to troll crank baits for bigger fish.
It didn’t take long to see what kind of day this was going to be. We hadn’t trolled more than 100 yards when the Art hooked up with the first walleye of the day. Even though it was only 14″ long, it felt good to have a bite that fast.
A short time later and Mike hooked into a really good fish. Mike is Art’s brother-in-law and originally hails from Arkansas. The way we fish for walleyes up here is totally new to him. Catfish are more his game.
It took awhile, but eventually, Mike did get the big fish on the end of his line up to the boat. From there though, things got a little to exciting for me. We could see by now it was a muskie and it wasn’t giving up yet. Over the next minute it was either next to the motors or under the boat. Twice I grabbed the line and pulled it out and away from the motors. I know that’s a big no, no, but so is letting the fish swim under the boat or by the motors and Mike didn’t quite have enough experience on using that 9-1/2′ long trolling rod to pull it out from under the boat or away from the motors. Eventually though, this 32″ muskie did find it’s way into the net. Talk about an exhilarating experience first thing in the morning. We sure were three excited guys right about then! After that quick early morning bite, things did slow down quite a bit. By keeping at it though, we were still able to hit a fish here and a fish there.

The winds blew fairly strong out of the northwest at about 15-20mph today which made it feel colder than it really was. All that wave action made boat control a little challenging, but it also gave us that famous walleye chop the we all like to have.
Surface water out in the main lake where we were trolling was running about 62-63 degrees.
Art hooked into another good fish later in the morning and after another hard fought battle, I slipped the net under a solid 31″ northern. Another pass through that area produced yet another hook up for Art. This time he pulled in a very nice, chunky walleye.
We caught all these fish and more by trolling shad raps in 10-12′ of water. We didn’t target crappies, but a few of them attacked our baits as well.
By the end of the day, we had 10 walleyes & saugers (three over 20″ long and another just short of 20 inches) 3 crappies, one northern and one muskie.
Later in the afternoon, we did spend an hour or so slow trolling crawler rigs and that put a couple extra walleyes & saugers in the boat. I’m pretty sure had we done that longer, we could have run the numbers up a bit higher, but I doubt that anyone in this boat would have wanted to do anything different.
It was a great day fishing with you two Art & Mike. Sure hope we can do it again next year!