Rob Manthei
05-05-2009, 06:17 AM
Well the season is underway!!!
Of course if wouldn't have been Wisconsin opener without snow! Yes, twice during the day we got snowed on....anyway, here we go.
Fished walleyes the past three days. What I am finding is that the largest and smallest lakes are doing the best right now. As of Sunday, most walleyes in the large lakes haven't spawned yet. The smallest lakes barely had any of the males still milking. Anyway, worrying about whether the fish are spawning or not isn't that important. The most important detail is to remember to release the spawning females.
It seemed that the walleyes were hanging around gravel/rocks really close to shore on the smaller to mid sized lakes. On the deeper lakes we found walleyes using the 1st break off of the traditional spawning grounds in 15 to 20 feet of water. I tried some "carry over" weed growth yesterday and caught a few fish, however with dead flat calm conditions yesterday morning, I didn't put much faith into the day.
Evening bites will be great using crankbaits along the shorelines on these deep lakes. Otherwise a good mixture of Ray's bait(fatheads, dace, redtails) on either slip bobbers or 1/16 to 1/8(depending on depth) Weedmaster jigs or Oddballs is working for me.
I did mess around with crappies a little yesterday when the sun warmed the water up. We did get into some using Frizzies. Outfished the boats around us 10 to 1 using artificials over minnows.
My brother-in-law and second generation guide service Andy Regenfuss released this 29 incher in my boat Sunday, one of many nice ones we boated together that day.
We did manage limits each day over the weekend(keeping all males in the 15.5 to 18 inch range).....released all females.
Of course if wouldn't have been Wisconsin opener without snow! Yes, twice during the day we got snowed on....anyway, here we go.
Fished walleyes the past three days. What I am finding is that the largest and smallest lakes are doing the best right now. As of Sunday, most walleyes in the large lakes haven't spawned yet. The smallest lakes barely had any of the males still milking. Anyway, worrying about whether the fish are spawning or not isn't that important. The most important detail is to remember to release the spawning females.
It seemed that the walleyes were hanging around gravel/rocks really close to shore on the smaller to mid sized lakes. On the deeper lakes we found walleyes using the 1st break off of the traditional spawning grounds in 15 to 20 feet of water. I tried some "carry over" weed growth yesterday and caught a few fish, however with dead flat calm conditions yesterday morning, I didn't put much faith into the day.
Evening bites will be great using crankbaits along the shorelines on these deep lakes. Otherwise a good mixture of Ray's bait(fatheads, dace, redtails) on either slip bobbers or 1/16 to 1/8(depending on depth) Weedmaster jigs or Oddballs is working for me.
I did mess around with crappies a little yesterday when the sun warmed the water up. We did get into some using Frizzies. Outfished the boats around us 10 to 1 using artificials over minnows.
My brother-in-law and second generation guide service Andy Regenfuss released this 29 incher in my boat Sunday, one of many nice ones we boated together that day.
We did manage limits each day over the weekend(keeping all males in the 15.5 to 18 inch range).....released all females.