Cisco Chain of Lakes report for week ending 5/24/14

Just got back from the past week fishing on the Cisco Chain staying at Vacationland Resort. This was the best fishing that I could ever have imagined. There was 3 of us, and we caught over 300 fish over 6 days, 90% walleye. On average, we were able to catch 5 keepers per day ranging from 15" to 23". The amount in the 13 to <15" was incredible, ie, we were not catching many 12" and less fish which bodes well for the future. I have never caught keepers and released because we were at our limit. A good problem to have.

Thousand Island was at 46 when we arrived and was at 55 when we left. We fished mainly East Bay, Big Lake bays, and Indian Lake. These lakes had warmer temperatures (not so much in Big Lake) and East Bay was 64 on this past Friday. We fished 12 hours a day since we caught fish all day and just could not stop until it got too dark. The pattern was that you could catch keepers at any time of the day BUT it really got hot at sunset to 9:30 PM. We had triple headers during this time several times. We moved from location to location a lot which is not easy on you, but necessary. I was committed this year to finding keeper size walleye and not be content with just catching 13" walleye. If the size of the walleye was not good, we moved down a ways or left to another location. It "seemed" that the same size traveled in schools. We had good fishing weather for all week which was clouds to partly cloudy except Friday which was sunny. We caught just as many on Friday though on a mostly sunny day. We used medium minnows and a few leeches. With leeches, you have to set the hook soon after a hit or you will lose the leech. WE ran out of bait on two days.

I am not good at fishing weed beds, but I know they are critical to fishing for walleye. I did fish the west bay and bridge weed beds, and we caught some fish, but not the same numbers as what we found on wood on shorelines. I am not sure if it was me not giving the weed beds enough chance, but it was hard to break from success. We looked for shaded shorelines, wood structures, light chop heading into the shorelines, and no less than 7' of water to fish in. I would say that the only must is to fish in 7' or greater water depth when dealing with shorelines. We had every bite type imaginable for walleye. Caught just as many under the boat as we did on shoreline. Be aware that smaller northerns are sitting right against the immediate shoreline if you cast in too far and they will be a pain to land or they will wrap you in wood.

Crappie were hitting more on Friday so I am wondering if they are going to be hot this week. For the people we met at Vacationland and Bents, most are crappie and perch fishing and the art of walleye fishing seems to have been for a chosen few.

We could only top this by finding some larger female walleyes, but this year will be tough to beat.