opener

[lil man tait]

just wondering how everyone did on opener. Wasn't there a walleye tourney? any results?

tait

[docemmert]

Same question here. I'm coming up for the Treelands tourney this weekend. I've been hearing some reports that the walleye population is way down and reports that the posession limit on the Chip has dropped to 2. If so, how will that affect the number of fish that can be registered for the tourney. Also, what's the water level looking like, hearing that it's pretty low.

-Dave-

[nick kahle]

i did't get up to the flowage for the opener, but i'm kind of glad i didn't. got to fish muskies down here on pewaukee sat. and sun. 5 follows on sat. and 3 fish and 8-10 follows on sun. 2- 24 inchers and a 46 1/2. not a bad way to start the season. catching my biggest muskie to date. can't wait for the muskie opener up there. pewaukee is a good lake, but man is it busy.

[ChipVet]

Was up to flowage.
Water level is about 2 feet low, fished for a whole 2 hours on Sat and the wind was terrible. No walleye and a couple of notherns but to be fair we quit when it was still windy and did not go out in the evening as I had to go home to hunt turkeys. The word up there is walleye poplation is way down but I am sure there are walleyes in the lake and I did OK last year. Limit is 2 as the full qouta was harvested and it sounds like all the changes the DNR wants have a good chance to go in affect for next season. Most resort owners are not happy campers.

[Ty Sennett]

I think the walleye population on the Chip was just below the highest it's ever been in the thirty plus years I've been walleye fishing out there. I'm talking about last year because this year just got under way and I can't really judge how good it is yet from one cold front weekend. 2008 was the best year I've seen with forty fish days being the norm. 2009 was pretty close to the same. We caught 14 fish on the opening day this year and 20 on Sunday and I would say the conditions were as close to terrible as they get. All of them were fifteen to 21 inches with two being about 13 or 14 inches. My buddy in another boat caught close to thirty fish on Sunday and quite a few on Saturday as well. Ask me in a week when the weather settles back down how this years walleye population is. I'll have a better answer then. I can tell you that they are about as scattered as I've ever seen them right now. The males are making their post spawn runs so you can really get a bunch in a row and then nothing for hours. You just have to be in the right spot at the right time for a few more days.

To get a good estimate of the walleye population you can't go on one night of electro shocking like the DNR is basing their statistics on. Look at the Treelands walleye challenge. There are 300 anglers that fish in that tourney. That's a pretty good judge of population estimate in my opinion. Since 1985 the two best years for catch per angler was 2008 and 2009. 2008 was their highest. So is their a walleye problem? No, but I'm glad everyone thinks there is a problem because it doesn't hurt to stock more fish as you can see by fishing Red Lake and Big Winny in Minnesota. Better to stay ahead of the game than fall behind.

[Ty Sennett]

I didn't answer your question Tait. There was a tourney out of Deerfoot. My buddy Luke's wife won the biggest walleye and I won the biggest stringer. Overall it was a very tough to say the least weekend. The wind was all but unbearable. Most of the spots you just couldn't fish.

As a side note for you Tait, the pike were really hitting so you will be happy to hear that. Two weeks buddy!