If you’re a diehard walleye fishing fanatic that loves chasing and catching big walleyes, then you have probably spent some time fishing in the dark of the night. Most of my night time walleye fishing has been done in the spring, shortly after ice out on the Wisconsin River. I’ve increased my exposure to night time walleye fishing with trips to the Mississippi River at Red Wing and a few of the tributary rivers running into Green Bay. All have proven time and again there potential to kick out big walleyes after dark.
Lake Wisconsin fits right into that category as well. The only difference for me is that I have quite simply, not spent enough time fishing for walleyes on Lake Wisconsin after dark. Especially in November, which may very well be the best time of all for consistently catching big walleyes.
TJ with a 26 incher
I’ve known for many, many years the potential for big fall night time walleyes on Lake Wisconsin. It’s not a secret and never has been. Every year in November, several walleyes over ten pounds fall to those who are willing to put in the time fishing below the Okee Bridge. You don’t even need a boat and in this case, it’s actually better to fish from shore than from a boat. Problem is, the Okee Bridge is not very big and once you get 2, 3 or 4 guys casting from the corners of this bridge, there’s not much left for a guy who gets there late. But if you do have a boat, and are willing to venture out into the darkness of the night, the opportunities to catch big Lake Wisconsin walleyes really start to show.
For me, I realized that this isn’t the kind of night fishing that we do anywhere else and a different plan was needed for this situation. In years past, I had spent time trolling near the Okee Bridge after dark with less than stellar results. We did catch a few decent fish but not what I was hoping for. A new plan was needed and my starting place was directly related to the same locations where we caught better fish during the day. For the most part, all those locations had one thing in common, which was structure adjacent to deep water.
Some of these structures were out in the middle of the lake and rather large. Trolling seemed to be the obvious way to cover these structures at night.
But I could also think of at least three different rock bars that are all adjacent to deep water. Casting crank baits while holding the boat in place with the “Spot Lock” function of my Minn Kota I-Pilot seemed like a no brainer. And it’s pretty easy to do, especially if you have a map chip with accurate bottom contour lines. I like casting cranks much more than trolling so that’s where we started.
The first night we did this was on November 4th and my guest for this trip was outdoor writer TJ Maglio. He’s a bass guy by nature but likes fishing walleyes as well. I selected a #9 Shad Rap and he started with a stick bait of some sort. I don’t remember how many cast we had thrown but it wasn’t very many before I was telling TJ to get the net. A fat, really fat 23” fish came in for a couple pictures before being quickly released.
At this point, TJ switched to a paddle tail he had rigged on one of his bass rods. It got bit off on his first cast so I gave him one of mine. Shortly after that, a fish just crushed my shad rap and then ripped off about 10’ of line
29″ walleye
before turning towards deep water. My first thought was this is not a walleye but probably a musky. After a very good battle, TJ slid the net under a dandy 29” walleye. A few more pictures and back in the water she went. Now TJ wanted a shad rap which I happily gave him so that we could both enjoy the action. Two and a half hours later, we called it a night due to the fact that we both had to go to work bright & early the next day. Six fish found themselves in our net though. (29”, 26”, 2 @ 23”, 21-1/2 & 19” long)
I couldn’t wait to get out and do it again but with trips booked on the weekends and work responsibilities on week days, fitting in another trip wasn’t looking to good.
Finally on November 10th, I had to get out and give it another go if for no other reason, than to see if the first time was a fluke. Good friend Rob Porubsky was my lucky guest on this trip.
We pulled up to the first rock bar, set the spot lock and snapped on a pair of #9 shad raps and Rob hooks up on his third cast and proceeds to land a 27-1/2” walleye, which is his new personal best. We catch two more, including a 25-1/2 and a 26 incher before the action dies down a little.
We move the boat around and throw cast from several different angles to no avail so then decide to move on to the next rock bar. Three cast into the new spot, and I was hooked up. A couple more fish came to the boat, nothing huge but nice solid fish just the same before we called it a night again after only 2-1/2 hours of fishing. Between the two of us, we caught eight fish between 22 and 27-1/2” long. Not a bad night works.
Some of the fish we caught came right off the top of the rock bar. Others came along the side of the rock bar so it definitely paid to cover the entire rock bar with cast.
another 26 incher
At times, our lures would dive to deep and bang into the rocks after which we would give some slack in the line and let the lure float up a bit. I thought for sure that would be a great way to trigger a strike but it never happened. Not a single strike came after our lure had banged into a rock. Most bites came when reeling slowly enough so that the shad rap never got that deep. For reference, the top of the first rock bar was around 4’ deep and the second one was about 6’ deep. We could easily crank our #9 shad raps down to those depths if we chose too but it was clearly better to fish our lures a couple feet off the bottom instead of right on it.
We didn’t try a lot of different lures and looking back, maybe we should have but we were catching fish so really didn’t feel the need to. I do think there are other lures that would have worked just as well but that’s something for us to play with on future trips.
As a whole, I really think we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to night fishing for big November walleyes on Lake Wisconsin. Now that the lake is covered in ice, it’s something we can dream about and look forward to come next year.