We had just moved in to the first spot we tried, not 3 mins after I turn off the motor when Al leans back on his “Swedish Blade Rod” and its Fish on! The diminutive 5’4″ MF spin rod was buckled over… but soon the fat 20″ walleye was in the Beckman net.
It was our first ever trip to DePere Wi. and the fabled Fox river walleye run, which empties into Green Bay. We couldn’t make the normal daybreak launch time and we were later sorry we couldn’t. This is a unique catch/release fishery due to the high levels of industrial pollution (per the WDNR). Each angler is allowed to keep a trophy Walleye over 28″ per day…all other fish must be released.
Before I could put the camera away the lil Swede rod and 1/2oz Firetiger Blade was smacked by another even bigger Eye. We decided to do a net photo on this one…a 23″ er…
Now it was about 10 AM and the bite shut down like I have never seen in my life! There were from 75 ot 100 boats spread out over a couple miles of river from the Highway 35 Dam down to the WI 172 bridge and we saw NO ONE pull out a net for the next 3 hrs… .
We drifted around a pod of boats near a Water Treatment Plant discharge while vertically working blades when something crushed my BFT Firetiger blade! The little 25 series Supreme was screaming out drag and my LTWS 510MXF was bent over into a nice “C”. I told Al I didn’t know what the he$$ it was but it wasn’t a Walleye. Soon the bright olive green/silver of a gorgeous 39″ Muskellunge was deftly scooped in the big Beckman…he broke off my front treble but the rear held for a quick CPR. What a nice surprise!
The wind came up to a fierce 25-30 MPH…making controlled vertical jigging near impossible… another several dead hours passed by and we decided to go up close to the Dam for one last hurrah… I ran up to the very upstream lip of the washout hole and marked a pod of fish. Switching to a Green Glow 1/2oz BFT blade I made only two drops when I was fast to a very strong fish… The 24″ female put up a great battle in the current and eventually succumbed to the net.
I wish I had more fish stories to tell but after that we tried everything in the book but came up empty. We packed it in by 7 PM with a 2 hr drive home.
In talking to several locals the full moon phase has a detrimental effect on the day bite there…
All in all it was a very slow day on the Fox but hey! A lot better than sitting home thinking about it…next week the Menominee River at Marinette WI and then back to P-4 for another wonderful week on my favorite water…
See ya out there!
My bad…72 was the air temp…45 was the water temp…
Nice report Tom
We were there on Tues 3-30 and found a very tough day also with the wind and very few bites 3 guys 10 hours on the water 2 fish it was brutal but the 2 we caught were very nice 24-25 inchers
yeah i sure hope it picks up next week. heading up sunday afternoon and fishing till tuesday night. might have to break out the planer boards and go troll the mouth area.
Eric, rumor has it that a 35.5″ 19 lb Eye was caught Tuesday night out in the mouth
…I haven’t been able to verify that.
I would love to see that 35.5″
Nice Report, Tom,
good luck on the BIG ONE
So many fish, and so little time…..
Jack
Great Report Tom
Nice Lunge