Jason Sloan
05-05-2009, 02:03 PM
With recent warm weather and sporadic rain we had thought the water temps would be further along. Fished a big, deep lake on Saturday morning with the weather choosing to throw wind, rain, and snow at us. We were out for a trophy walleye, and didn't connect. The waves got real big around noon, we went into town for some lunch, then headed back out to a smaller lake to hide from the wind and hopefully catch a few fish. We found new green weeds in about 8 feet of water with walleyes responding to chubs on slip-bobbers and jigs/plastics. Caught and released about 18 walleyes averaging 16 inches with the biggest maybe pushing 21". We were on the lake from about 2 to 6 pm, with the activity in that time period best around 4pm.
Sunday morning Gordy went to a small lake in Vilas County, I'll let him give that report. Sunday evening we went to one of our smallmouth lakes. Fished from about 2-5pm under partly cloudy skies and a gusty NW wind. Only caught 5 smallies, with 2 between 4 and 5lbs. Caught the fish on crankbaits thrown shallow. On this lake we should have caught a lot more fish, which tells me that the bass are not up yet (obviously), and we're about a week off of the shallow crankbait bite I enjoy so much. These bass would be better taken right now on jigs/chubs or gulp fished off the breaks in 8-15 feet of water. By this weekend hopefully they'll be moved up more.
Some observations from this weekend: male walleyes were still milking, heard this from guys on the Rainbow and Three Lakes Chain. I would have thought they'd be done on those boddies of water. I think walleyes on the deeper lakes are still recovering from the spawn with the post spawn bite upon us. Look for Friday's full moon to maybe spur a really good weekend of walleye fishing up here in N.WI.
Thanks for tuning in, and as always, feel free to post your own reports or to ask any questions.
JS
Sunday morning Gordy went to a small lake in Vilas County, I'll let him give that report. Sunday evening we went to one of our smallmouth lakes. Fished from about 2-5pm under partly cloudy skies and a gusty NW wind. Only caught 5 smallies, with 2 between 4 and 5lbs. Caught the fish on crankbaits thrown shallow. On this lake we should have caught a lot more fish, which tells me that the bass are not up yet (obviously), and we're about a week off of the shallow crankbait bite I enjoy so much. These bass would be better taken right now on jigs/chubs or gulp fished off the breaks in 8-15 feet of water. By this weekend hopefully they'll be moved up more.
Some observations from this weekend: male walleyes were still milking, heard this from guys on the Rainbow and Three Lakes Chain. I would have thought they'd be done on those boddies of water. I think walleyes on the deeper lakes are still recovering from the spawn with the post spawn bite upon us. Look for Friday's full moon to maybe spur a really good weekend of walleye fishing up here in N.WI.
Thanks for tuning in, and as always, feel free to post your own reports or to ask any questions.
JS