Opening Weekend Report 2009

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