Lake Wisconsin Walleye and Sauger Report

Friday, June 13

I didn’t have high hopes on my drive to the boat landing this morning. A monsoon of rain (5 inches) had fallen on the area surrounding Lake Wisconsin the day before and I was afraid the lake might be so muddy that it would be a waste of time to even attempt fishing for walleyes.

Jeremy and Jack Williams had agreed to meet up at 5:00am at the boat launch but they were no where around and I couldn’t get them on the cell phone. With all the road closings, I suspected that they weren’t even able to get from Milwaukee to Lake Wisconsin. But a die hard fisherman like Jeremy wasn’t about to let monsoon like rain falls keep him and his dad from enjoying a walleye fishing trip on Lake Wisconsin. They had to detour several times just to get to the boat landing but sure enough, they eventually made it there.

The lake level was the highest I’ve ever seen it. It was level with the top of the pier at Sunset Bay in the early morning hours. Despite that, we loaded the boat and pushed off. None of us really thought we would catch many fish but all of us wanted to go out anyway.

We started out working crawler rigs in the main lake along some of the more productive spots from the past week or two. The lake water was the color of low fat chocolate milk and plenty of debris was floating on the surface. It wasn’t long before we pulled the lines. The new plan was to look for cleaner water in the bays. We decided to search shallower water in the bays by casting shad raps, jointed shad raps and rip shads up into 3 – 4′ of water and cranking it back to the boat which I kept in 7 – 8′ of water with the aid of the bow mount electric motor.

Jeremy was the first one to hook up with a fish. A nice size white bass that hammered his rip shad. Shortly after I set the hook on a nice 17" sauger less than 15′ away from the boat. For the next hour, we continued casting an assortment of different colored crank baits into the shallower water and cranking them back to the boat. We ended up with a total of three keeper size saugers, one small bass and several more white bass.

Next we decided to drift & drag jigs tipped with night crawlers along the mouth of the bay. There was a very distinct mud line right along where the current seam in the main lake was. We let the wind push the boat along but used the electric to correct the course of our drifts making sure we stayed out of the muddy water. The fish were there and they were hungry. In the morning hours, we caught mostly smaller walleyes & saugers. The wind picked up a bit more in the afternoon and that seemed to increase the number of keeper size fish. The jigs we used were 3/16oz H20 precision jigs from B’FishN’ tackle.

Some of the better size keepers were caught out of water as shallow as five feet deep but we also caught keeper size walleyes and sauger from water as deep as 13′ deep. By the end of the day, the three of us had put 25 walleyes and saugers in the boat. Sixteen of the 25 fish were at least 15 inches long. Two were right on the 15" mark. None were over 20" long but that was fine with us.

It was far more than anything we thought possible at the start of the day!

Saturday morning, June 14th

Mike and Justin Freitag had an unbelievable day of fishing with me last year on Father’s day. This years trip was sure to be different. With dirty, muddy water through out the entire main lake basin, we weren’t even going to try and fish the same areas where the hot crank bait trolling bit occurred the year before.

The goal was to catch enough walleyes and saugers to supply the family fish fry later this afternoon. We didn’t waste any time and started dragging jigs tipped with crawlers through same spot we worked over the day before.

The bite was a little slower this morning but we were still putting a few in the boat. Justin did tie into a 27" northern which gave him a pretty good battle. After a few pictures it was released back into the lake. Hopefully, we’ll meet again in a few years.

A little later in the morning, Mike battled a nice 21" sauger to the net. After that though, the guys caught mostly small sub-15" walleyes and saugers. Two of them measured right at 15 inches but we let them both go just to be on the safe side. The bite was still pretty good but the fish were just to small so we played a hunch and made a move.

I had never fished the new spot before but about half way through the drift, I hooked up with a fish and handed the rod to Justin. A nice 16" sauger was soon flopping around in the net. Two more drifts each produced another sauger in the keeper size range before the morning was over.

Mike and Justin had put 8 saugers and 8 walleyes in the boat. They kept four walleyes & saugers plus one crappie. More than enough for everyone to get there fill at the family fish fry this afternoon.

Sunday went about the same as the rest of the weekend. Jigs tipped with crawlers was the hot bait and staying out of the muddy water was the key to finding fish that would bite consistently.

Best depths were anywhere from 6′ to 15′ depending.