Willard Bay

[goose_716]

Went to Willard yesterday and caught 3 walleyes and 5 wipers with a buddy of mine. Went again today tried darn every lure iin box changed speed used snap weights, didn't use snap weights. Nothing not one bite. Yet their was other people catching i don't understand that lake. FRUSTRATING!!! Can someone help that lake baffles me. But at least i didn't have to clean anything today. I was with good company and had fun.
[signature]

[Watershadow]

I feel your pain! two times in row, we got into em pretty good, last time I went about a week ago, I didn't get any..even though reports were pretty decent from others. I've seen over the years what I believe to be scents from peoples hands make a difference, but I use a masking scent and take good care with my hands, so I don't believe that was the case for me. For some it could be cigs, lotions, food products. If peeps around me scoring, and I'm not, that's the direction I'm thinking and/or leader size as well.

Maybe for you it was, or maybe it was just your time to put up a big zero. (that's why they call in fishing, not catching)

Plenty of guys on this site that have had similar type experiences, though I suspect there are a few WB veterans who almost never strike out, like maybe wiperhunter.
[signature]

[wiperhunter2]

It treated us pretty good today but we had to do a lot of hunting to find some willing fish. Willard is a big lake an there are times I'll even smell the skunk because I just can not cover enough water, in the time I have on the lake. This time of the year with the water temps in the 70ies, you can almost always find some fish that will bite if you cover enough water. They can be in one spot on day and gone the next and that was the case today. We did not find good groups of feeding fish until 1pm today but when we easily doubled our total fish for the day in just two hours after being on the lake for 5 hours before. There are a couple of things that will really help, get a GPS if you don't have one and mark the location of every fish caught while trolling, then use that info as starting points, when looking for active fish. The fish are at certain locations for a reason, usually some type of food in that area. Second trust the lures you have caught fish on before. When I'm not catching fish, I always run lures that have produced for me in the past, then on my second rod, I switch lures every 20 to 30 minutes until I find one that works.
[signature]

[Watershadow]

Hey nice to know even you went w/out a fish for 5 hrs; I don't feel too bad now.

hey, do you like WB throughout the summer or do you find the high temps and growing shad fry put them off their feed?
[signature]

[wiperhunter2]

Yes, there is no doubt that the young of the year shad have a major impact on the catching at Willard, once they get big enough to eat. Yesterday they started showing up in big numbers in certain areas of the lake, in another month or less the numbers of fish caught will take a sharp down turn, as those baby shad become a bigger part of the predator fish's diet. IMO, when this happens the catching doesn't stop all together but it slows way down. From reading my fishing journal from the past 10 years, the pattern for me at least, goes from catching on average a total of 12 to 20 wiper and walleye per trip down to 6, with few or any eyes being caught after the first week in July. Those numbers change when we are seeing boils but that only happens in years when shad numbers are down and it hasn't happened in almost 6 years now, so it is hard to say how this year will play out. Because Willard is so close, I will continue to fish it at that point but not as often.
[signature]

[HD7000]

With these summer days we have been getting lately, I would suggest fishing them on more of a trout like schedule. The water is getting real warm mid day and my guess is its shutting them down now she a couple weeks ago that was prime time for Willard fishin... My buddy picked up a few real nice wipers the other night while catfishing! Water temps around 65 is what I look for...
[signature]

[Watershadow]

anybody night fish it? i was kind wondering what it might be like after 9 till 1-2 in the morning or something.
[signature]

[wiperhunter2]

This is an old post but it was at night time, so I thought it might be of interest:
http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gfo...12;#585312
[signature]