Lake Wisconsin Fall Fishing: Crappies & Walleyes

Many of us look forward to the day when a trophy fish decides to take our ultra lite fishing rod way past its intended use. Most of the time, that story ends up being a sad one about the “Big one” that got away.
Not so for Doug Musser. He subdued this beautiful 28-3/4″ walleye after she engulfed his 1/16oz crappie jig tipped with a waxworm using one of my St. Croix Premier Ultra Lites.
This fish hit his jig within a second or two after it landed in two feet of water covered in green algae.
This big walleye pretty much owned Doug for the first few minutes. She went deep on several hard runs under the boat while Doug hung on, but little by little, Doug started to get the upper hand and finally brought her to the net. Well done Doug!

We found crappies in all the usual places. Mostly in 10-15′ of water. The best part was that in many cases, we found walleyes and saugers hanging around as well. It appears as though both the crappies and at least some of the walleyes and saugers are keying on the same food source.
It certainly makes for some excellent bonus fish while we are catching crappies!
Surface water temperatures in the main body of water on Lake Wisconsin are still hovering around 70 degrees and our patterns really haven’t changed at all so far this fall.

We found walleyes and at least a few crappies as shallow as 2 feet but mostly they were down around that 10′ zone. Even when we were fishing in deeper water, that 10-12′ zone was more productive than right on the bottom.
The saugers also hammered the plain live bait rigs tipped with fathead minnows or “Dork rigs” as some of you have been calling it while almost all of the walleyes we caught have bit on a 1/16oz jig/plastic/waxworm combo fished on an ultra lite. Now that’s the kind of bonus fish eveyone loves!

We also caught numerous white bass of all sizes along with plenty of average size bluegills and sheepshead. We even caught a few perch and at least one rock bass. You never really know whats going to show up on the end of your line when fishing for crappies in Lake Wisconsin. That just adds to the flavor and fun of a fall fishing trip as far as I’m concerned. It’s good to keep the guys guessing.