Fishing Report for June 8

[Tanner Wildes]

Friday, My buddy Bill got out musky fishing on the chippewa flowage for a couple of hours, had two fish up, one about 43-44 inches on a cowgirl, and another upper 30 inch fish that gave a lazy swipe at the bait but missed it, both were on shallow weeds.

Saturday, guided out on LCO for walleye, got quite a few walleye and some nice pike trolling for walleye with crawler harnesses in anywhere from 8-14 feet of water. got alot of nice walleye up to 26 inches, and pike up to 30 inches, missed alot of fish too, but smaller blades on the crawler harnesses was the key.

Sunday, Guided out on Grindstone lake, again did really well on walleye trolling crawler harnesses again in about 6-12 feet of water, smaller blades again did the best. when trolling the crawler harnesses I noticed that I had a blade sitting on the floor of the boat, so I must have sent a harness out without a blade, not a minute later caught a fish on that crawler harness without a blade on it, so you can tell they were bitting well then! Also we open water trolled cranks in the main lake, got a fish on, as I grabed it out of the holder, the line snapped between the board and the rod, took about 15 minutes to swing around and grab the board, and the fish was still on it!! I hand lined in a 26 inch walleye!!

Water temps on have dropped to the upper 60's!

Good Luck,
Tanner Wildes

[Mark Benson]

Tanner:

Good stuff on the broken line catch!!!

Mark

[Regulator]

Nice Work!!! Gotta love seeing stringers full of 17-24 inch eyes. They were all males weren't they Tanner. Those low 20 inch fish are my favorite EATERS!!!

[JohnN]

Regulator,

Are you serious?

JohnN

[Regulator]

No, I'm not serious. I hate to see people's ignorance about what they are keeping. Never good to be taking out the big females, no matter how many times you do it. And I still am wondering how tanner goes about identifying his male and female walleyes???? I remember reading a few posts last summer where he was keeping fish 20-26 inches and he stated they were all male. How did you know that Tanner????

[Tanner Wildes]

Regulator,
I don't know if these walleye were either male or female, in the spring time and fall it is a lot easier to tell the difference. A lot of people think that all male walleye are under 14 inches, in fact there are alot of male walleye that are over that 14-15 inch range, after being with the DNR and on my own experience I have found a lot of walleye that were males up to 26 inches, a lot more that you would believe, Also do you think that you have never kept a female walleye? yeah I'm sure everybody has kept some female walleye. On top of that those walleye came from LCO, Which as the DNR says it managed as a put-grow- and take resource, there is such minimal amount of natural reproduction going on out on LCO, they stock it heavy and manage it as all the fish that are put in there won't reproduce, and can be harvested without effecting the population.

On a side note to please, if you are going to make a comment like that please use your real name, don't hide behind your computer.

If you would like to continue this conversation please call me at (715) 462-4247 and I would be more than happy talk about it further.

Thank you,
Tanner Wildes

[JohnN]

First, there is no reliable way to tell a male from a female walleye except when the females are full of spawn. It's not possible. Even when they're full of spawn it can be tough because smaller (<20") females won't necessarily plump up like the big ones do.

I've spent a lot of time fishing walleyes on rivers and elsewhere when they're full of spawn and relatively easy to tell male vs. female. I won't keep a walleye over 20" anywhere, ever (well, that assumes I'll never be starving in the wilderness). But I have accidently killed smaller females in the winter that weren't all that fat.

There are plenty of males that over 15", but very, very few over 20". I believe I've caught them up to 26", but they're very rare - like a 45"+ male muskie. 20"+ walleyes are important to the resource for their genetics and reproductive capacity, even if there are low reproduction rates in the body of water. They are a top of the line predator that helps balance the ecosystem, just like pike and muskies. Plus, it's a thrill to catch a big walleye just like it's a thrill to catch a big muskie. I just wish the masses (resort owners, vacationing anglers, etc.) would get their heads wrapped around this idea instead of thinking that every walleye should get the knife -- that mentality is counter-productive in the long run.

Let me just say again that I have no problem with walleyes smaller than 20" getting the hot grease release. But big walleyes - all of them over 20", or even 18" if you can - should be released.

Thanks for letting us post here, Tanner.

John__Nesse

[blugold78]

That had to be a good day for you and your customers! Good for you, Tanner! It's days like that we ALL wish we could have. But...most of us don't get the chance, some get a little agitated, and you get jammed for it.

Keep up the good work. Your frequent posts help us pattern fish when we DO get our rare chances to fish.

If fishing within the regulations is defined as "ignorance", I guess that makes all of us who abide by them idiots.

Cheers

[Jason Sloan]

Dammit, that's twice!!!

Haha Nice fish buddy, way to put your clients on great fishing action.
Are you seeing any action on trolled cranks yet? Got a few over by us, but running pretty nice. Give me a call sometime.

JS

[TheHobbits]

Usually I just come to this, and a few other sites to read the fishing reports, that being said, Tanner, I appreciate you, and other guides like you taking the time to put reports on here how fishing is, and tips on what to use. I do have to wonder though why certain people who are not happy with the way you fish, or the regulations you follow keep coming back here to read and gripe about them. I notice certain names, which I will not write here, that have commented on other guides reports also, and did notice that they do nothing but pat one of the guides on the back about everything, never once have I read anything negative about when this other guide keeps larger walleyes, telling him that he should release them. Really, to me this is like reading a book, if you dont like the way the book is going, dont read it, but dont keep going back to reading it just to complain, I'd much rather read the reports, and not the gripes.

Thanks again Tanner
TheHobbits