Post spawn walleyes continue to filter down into Lake Wisconsin. We have not been finding large numbers of fish but the ones we have crossed paths with are pretty nice fish. On an average outing of four hours, we’ll catch one or two small walleyes, a couple more eaters in that 15-20″ range and a couple more over 20″ long. Its not fast and furious yet, but it does seem to be getting better all the time. Get ready though, cause the best bite of the year is just around the corner.
Picture – Don Birkholz holds up a 29″ post spawn walleye.
The program that I’ve been using the most over the past two weeks has been draggin jigs & ringworms from B Fish N Tackle Company or Draggin Jigs tipped with fathead minnows or crawlers. Ringworms worked the best followed by minnows over crawlers this past week. That could change tomorrow or next week though.
Picture – a chunky 23-1/2″ post spawn walleye
We were lucky and were able to get out between the storms on both Saturday & Sunday this weekend. Any ideas of seeing the sun though were pretty far fetched to say the least. With the skies reamaining dark & dreary, best ringworm colors for us were chartreuse/green core, chartreuse/orange core & electric blue. The last time we did see the sun while fishing, gold cracker was our best color. We rigged the ringworms on 1/8oz Draggin Jigs for the most part but occaisionally, we also used Precision H20 jigs in 3/32 & 1/8oz sizes. Black or gold has been our best jighead color. I don’t believe you can get gold jig heads anymore but I sure hope we can again in the future. Gold is easily one of my favorite colors and when using just live bait, a gold jig is usually one of the first colors I’ll pull out of the box.
Dragging jigs & ringworms took almost all of our fish. Our biggest fish of the weekend came only because of information I received from another guide here on Lake Wisconsin. Dan Miller & I have shared info on whats working and whats not working for the past two or three years. When your a fishing guide, getting high quality information is not only hard to get, its invaluable. Most fishermen just want to get “free” information from guides and would never consider sharing a good bite with a guide. If Dan had not shared his program with us when our dragging bite died on Sunday afternoon, we would never have crossed paths with the 29″ walleye that Don Birkholz caught. His new personal best! (cudo’s to mendotaeye here also for sharing info)
For now, since this pattern was figured out by Dan and not I, that technique will remain a secret. Sorry!
We ran his program for about two hours. It produced three fish for us but when one of them is 29″ long, no one in our boat cared how many we caught. We also put a 20″ walleye & a 19-1/2″ sauger in the boat that way though.
Jeremy Birkholz holds up a nice 17″ walleye caught dragging a chartreuse/green core ringworm on a black Draggin Jig.
1st photo – another shot of Don’s 29 incher.
2nd photo – Don with a 20 incher that was released.
3rd photo – Kevin Key holds up a 20 incher prior to release.
4th photo – Jimmy Leonard’s 24″ caught last weekend.
Awesome fish, Joel. Great to see the draggin jigs getting a workout!
Good job Joel, the detail in your write ups is good stuff.
B FISH N Tackle makes a beautiful gold Draggin’ Jig but I don’t see it on their website. My guess is Bob is still waiting for his web people to get it online. I’m sure if you call you’ll be able to get some.
And as always, Joel, awesome report!
Nice looking fish Joel.
Thanks guys!
Thanks for the info on the gold Draggin Jigs! I’ve had some clients asking where I got mine and why can’t they get any. I didn’t really know what to tell them.
Gotta love those draggin jigs! Great report and fish Joel!
Joel
You can tell them they can get them online!
Bob added the Gold Draggin’ Jigs + a new Pink Pearl Glow last night.
http://www.bfishntackle.com/draggin_jigs.html
Saaweeeet!
Pink Pearl Glow looks like a great new addition to the Draggin Jig lineup. I’m gonna have to get some of those in my line up asap.
Indeed! Look’s like it’s time to put in another order
Those are some very nice post spawn fish Joel. Keep up the good work.
Great job putting the smack on them beautiful lookin’ girls
