Jeff's Guide Service
05-17-2011, 09:53 PM
Hi folks.
Well what a crummy week of weather – words can’t even begin to describe the torture we’ve gone through. Wind, a few snow flurries and extremely cold temperatures as low as 26 degrees in the morning, and last Saturday only 38 degrees for the high, wreaked havoc on our fishing this week. Because of this, that strong post-spawn weed bite was having trouble getting started with any intensity. The good news is, fish didn’t shut off completely. We caught fish every day, and nice catches of walleye, northern and the past few days – Big CRAPPIES. You just had to work harder for them and fight the high winds. We have several days of warming temperatures starting and this should make things happen quickly. If you’re heading out after walleyes, concentrate your efforts on any new green weed you can find on many of the area lakes. Work these areas slowly, in water depths ranging from 6 to 8 ft. Jig-and-minnow combinations have been working best. Keep your jigs light, 1/16 oz is perfect for these kind of conditions, and keep your presentation very slow. Now be aware, hits are still being very light, so don’t just rip through weeds, feel your way along. The difference between a hit and a weed is very subtle. Again, this should pick up as that post-spawn weed bite starts firing.
NORTHERNS have been doing alright. We’re finding them in some of the same areas and using the same bait. Besides jigs and live bait, crank baits have been working pretty well when chasing these fish. The surprise of the week, and the best news to report, is that we’re beginning to find crappies in fair numbers. These fish are staging outside their spawning areas in weeds, and I’ve been finding them in water depths ranging from 6 to 10 feet depending on the weed growth. Mini-mites, set up on a bobber, have been working extremely well, and white has been my best color. These fish are pre-spawn and judging from the hardness of the eggs, still at least a week or so from moving in.
Everything for the next week is going to be based on how warm our temperatures will get and how much water temp we can gain. Today was a beautiful day with temps reaching 72. The night-time temps are still very cold – this morning was 26 degrees and it doesn’t sound much different for tonight. Towards the end of the week, though, we’re supposed to see some milder temperatures in the evening. We lost several degrees of surface temp this past week and water temps have fallen to about 51 to 52 on most of your mid-sized lakes. With the warmer temps like today, we reached 56 by the end of the day; hopefully we can maintain most of that overnight and gain a degree or two tomorrow and this will show us some dramatic improvement in the aggressiveness of fish.
Another bonus we’ve been finding here lately – while targeting walleyes we’ve also been running across some very big largemouth bass. We’ve been catching quite a few fish ranging from 19 to 23 inches, and we’re also starting to see some smallmouth action taking place.
Well that’s it for now. See you on the water.
Good luck fishing. Jeff
Well what a crummy week of weather – words can’t even begin to describe the torture we’ve gone through. Wind, a few snow flurries and extremely cold temperatures as low as 26 degrees in the morning, and last Saturday only 38 degrees for the high, wreaked havoc on our fishing this week. Because of this, that strong post-spawn weed bite was having trouble getting started with any intensity. The good news is, fish didn’t shut off completely. We caught fish every day, and nice catches of walleye, northern and the past few days – Big CRAPPIES. You just had to work harder for them and fight the high winds. We have several days of warming temperatures starting and this should make things happen quickly. If you’re heading out after walleyes, concentrate your efforts on any new green weed you can find on many of the area lakes. Work these areas slowly, in water depths ranging from 6 to 8 ft. Jig-and-minnow combinations have been working best. Keep your jigs light, 1/16 oz is perfect for these kind of conditions, and keep your presentation very slow. Now be aware, hits are still being very light, so don’t just rip through weeds, feel your way along. The difference between a hit and a weed is very subtle. Again, this should pick up as that post-spawn weed bite starts firing.
NORTHERNS have been doing alright. We’re finding them in some of the same areas and using the same bait. Besides jigs and live bait, crank baits have been working pretty well when chasing these fish. The surprise of the week, and the best news to report, is that we’re beginning to find crappies in fair numbers. These fish are staging outside their spawning areas in weeds, and I’ve been finding them in water depths ranging from 6 to 10 feet depending on the weed growth. Mini-mites, set up on a bobber, have been working extremely well, and white has been my best color. These fish are pre-spawn and judging from the hardness of the eggs, still at least a week or so from moving in.
Everything for the next week is going to be based on how warm our temperatures will get and how much water temp we can gain. Today was a beautiful day with temps reaching 72. The night-time temps are still very cold – this morning was 26 degrees and it doesn’t sound much different for tonight. Towards the end of the week, though, we’re supposed to see some milder temperatures in the evening. We lost several degrees of surface temp this past week and water temps have fallen to about 51 to 52 on most of your mid-sized lakes. With the warmer temps like today, we reached 56 by the end of the day; hopefully we can maintain most of that overnight and gain a degree or two tomorrow and this will show us some dramatic improvement in the aggressiveness of fish.
Another bonus we’ve been finding here lately – while targeting walleyes we’ve also been running across some very big largemouth bass. We’ve been catching quite a few fish ranging from 19 to 23 inches, and we’re also starting to see some smallmouth action taking place.
Well that’s it for now. See you on the water.
Good luck fishing. Jeff