Hit the lake this morning about 7am with my good friend and tournament partner Dave. It was nothing fast and furious but steady untill we called it a day about 11. Wound up boating 13 walleye 1 wiper and one catfish. Walleye ranged in size from 14 inches to 21 inches. The wiper was 20 1/2. Lost about a dozen walleye at the boat untill dave convinced me to slow down and actually use the net[crazy]. I guess he actually wanted them in the boat. Fish were caught all over on cranks.
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[font "Calibri"]Looks like you guys had a good day out. What colors where they hitting today? I’m headed out tonight…..weather permitting. PM's always welcome.[/font]
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Nice Mike, it seems right when you left town walleye bite turned on. they sure have gotten skinny now though. Hollar if you need a fishing partner.
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i never have seen real chubby 13 14 inch walleye am i wrong or im misssing something they are built like a torpedo.
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In the first part of june those 2 20 inchers were i bet more than a pound heavier. I am no walleye fisherman Just making an observation is all.
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Least we know where to go for dinner! Seems you guys had a good game going on to boat that many fish in just 4 hours! Congrats!
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Yeah, the 20s were skinny. The 14s are in great shape though. You wanna see skinny 14s, fish starvation before the perch were in there. The only reason those two fish stayed in my box was because they were in bad shape. I tried all day with the live well running to get them belly down. The 14s were fiesty all the way to the knife. But give those bigger fish a break, theyve been workin there guts out to give us great spawns since the water came back up[
]. My best theory (I AM NOT A BIOLOGIST) is that the large walleye that are chasing the inch shad right now are not getting enough bang for their buck. The energy they have to excert to catch a small shadlette is probably more than they get from the meal. But to a fish a 1/3 their weight its good forage. Thus, the energy lost to fighting me to stay in the lake is too much and they just give up.
Not many 20 + inch fish are being caught right now. Thats all I caught this spring. I was wondering if they had even spawned the last three years. Well.... the 10-16 inch walleye(by the thousands) were just doing a really good job at hiding from me[shocked]. There is quite a large population of 20+ inch fish in there right now, I just dont think most of them are out suspending chasing mini shads. Now that I know we have a spectacular multi year age class coming up, I will leave them alone and hunt for mama walleye and daddy walleye[fishin].
BTW their were a couple of DNR guys out there taking samples for quagga muscles and they told me that they dumped 80,000 wiper fry (walleye food) last week and a little over 100,000 two weeks ago. I wish they would hurry and grow and help with the freakin riddiculus amount of shad out there. Oh, and small 20-30 fish boils all over the lake, you couldnt look a full 360deg all day without seeing one.
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Ive been fishing the South bank. Its been good, but I havent seen a boil yet. I have seen boats closer to the north west dike. Is that the general area for boils now?
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Yeah we saw plenty of 5-10 fish boils if you want to call those a boil. They last just long enough for you to see them and then they are gone.
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There were just as many boils on the south end as the north. We were forced to the south when the waves got to 3ft on the north side. Did just as good over there. I found the best way to fish the small boils is to throw a marabou jig about a foot under a bobber and let it sit in the middle. If your casting lures then you only get your bait in front of them for a second and maybe get 3 casts. The wipers are getting a little smarter every year, wont eat anything you throw into em anymore. Keep your big motor running and run right into em and cast, the boat dont spook em. I proved that multiple times on monday by trolling right through the middle of the boil. Didnt phase em one bit, they just kept at it and knocked the crap out of the underside of the boat, kicker motor and all....
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That is it about bait in a whole. Can't exert too much energy to feed. They need more baitfish in these lakes.
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Thanks for the jig and bobber idea. I friend told me there are also large shad about 10inches to a foot long in these boils. To big for the Wiper to consider prey. Have you seen this as well?
I may have seen this as well but it has been wind and only noticed the large swirls and pops. Guess its time to keep a pole rigged and handy for when it happens again!
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SWEET! Report man!
I got to get out there, this weekend!
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Good job. One of these days, I'll get my first Wiper.
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I saw wiper in the 10 to 12 inch range in the boils. Maybe he
them with shad?
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