Willard, Wipers and Catfish, Oh my!

[Playas44]

I hit Willard for the first time today. I went with a friend from work.
We were on the water by daybreak. We trolled and cast crank baits, minnows and night crawlers.
My friend caught a wiper on a blue and silver lipless crank bait. At first he thought he had a snag, but held one and the snag began to move. We didn't measure it or even get a picture, but it was a nice fish.
Fish were boiling all over the place and I started trying to cast into the boils with out any luck.
On one cast, I hit a small pocket in the rocks right on the shore, the lure wasn't even 5 feet from the shore when it was "Fish on".
When I got it to the boat, I found it was a cat fish that had hit the crank bait.
We went back to trolling when I had another fish on, when I got it too the boat, I found it was another cat fish. Two cats on a crank bait.
About an hour later while still trolling the crank bait, I had my third and final fish on. This time it was a very good wiper.
When I brought the stringer up to put the wiper on, both cat fish were there until I lifted the stringer up and the first one I caught broke the link on the stringer and disappeared.
I put the wiper on and we went back to trolling and about 15 minutes later, Mike tells me, " Your wiper is gone". I thought he was kidding, but no, it was gone.
I caught three fish and lost two from the stringer. Oh well.
We headed in at 11:30. There were boils all over, I cast through them a number of times with no luck.
I had never caught a wiper, so today was a success.
We fished down the north dike.
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[Flycasting]

Congrats on the 1st wiper. They put up quite a tussle don't they?
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[trfishin]

[]great report and sorry to heard about losing that wiper, but there's always next time. good luck fishin trfishin
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[ocean]

Use rope !!!I lost some nice fish on stringers.Catfish are notorious for bending stringers and escaping.[] Walmart sell this rope with a hook so you can attach it to your boat.
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Glad you got into them. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]By the way, those little chain stringers are for wimpy trout. You need "carrying power" if you wanna play with the big boys. I quit using stringers and have been using the big baskets for many years. The only time I use a stringer is when I keep a fish too big to go into the basket. Then, I use a heavy rope stringer. Here's a pic of both basket and stringer in use.[/#0000ff]

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[Playas44]

That they do. It was a blast catching them. Most of my gear was for bass fishing in New Mexico and Arizona. But catching a wiper was a challenge for that gear. I had trouble getting the drag just right. A little less drag and I couldn't move him and a little more and I worried he was going to break off.
It did get my heart rate up and that's what I was looking for.
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[Playas44]

Sad part is, I have one of those baskets and didn't take it with me. It will be along next time.
Frozenover and I are going to hit Willard again Saturday morning. This time we will be on the tubes instead of in a boat.
I am thinking catching a wiper from the tube is going to be even more of a rush.
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[FishWisconsin]

Little secret, not so any more, is that the shad at this time of year have just hatched, so they are small...last year if figured out that if I cast in boils and got no action, my bait was too big.

Small white curly tail grubs work very well in the boils this time of year, as do white 2" streamers on the fly rod.
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[Playas44]

Are you casting these right into the boil?

I would cast the crank baits right into the boils, but never didn't get a hook up.
I was wondering about casting a minnow into them, but I never was close enough to get a minnow in the middle of it.
Thanks for the tip, I will try some smaller grubs on Saturday.
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[Flycasting]

Holy cow TD... that is a huge cat. What did it weigh in at? (Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread.)
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Hi Jack. Howya doin'.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]That was about a 24# flathead in Arizona. It hit a small crappie jig on 6# line and a light rod. Not a basket fish.[/#0000ff]
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[Paddler]

I was up at Willard yesterday, also. Lots of boils in the afternoon. Couldn't exactly see the sahd even though I ran right through the boils. That's because they were hatchlings, maybe an inch long. The gulls and terns swallowed them whole even before they brought their heads out of the water.

I trolled a Shad Rap 5 through the boils without results, off of a planer board 2-3 feet down. No luck. I picked up 4 walleye, though, on deeper cranks, in the neighborhood of 14-16".
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[wiperhunter2]

It's never a good idea to troll through a boil []it tends to break up the feeding fish. It is a much better idea to troll around the boil []and if you are casting, come up to the edge of the boil and shut off your gas motor. If you have an electric motor use it it stay near the surface feeding fish. Glad to hear the walleye are still hitting the crank baits. WH2
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[Playas44]

What are you casting into the boils?
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[Paddler]

Yes, I know, but I didn't have anything to cast into the boils, so trolling was my only option. I tried to troll so that my board went through the leading edge of the boil, so the boat didn't go over the top. Had some success doing this last year, but not on Monday. I don't target the wipers, anyway, as my wife prefers walleye.
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[wiperhunter2]

There are a lot of lures to use when casting to the boils but the best thing I can tell you is to match the lure with the size of the shad you are seeing in the water. White is always a good color and a plastic grub like a curly tail jig that is an inch or two long have been working . Maniac makes a good plastic minnow like the one MGB was using the other day and posted a picture of. As the shad get bigger use bigger lures/plastics, top water poppers can work very good at times also. Good luck. WH2
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[Playas44]

Thank you. I know I will have a pole rigged with some small white curly tailed jigs to start with.
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