Fishing report for 7-17-2013

Hi everyone,

Took George and his Son Scott out for a full day yesterday. Scott is the golf pro at Haywards Big Fish Golf Course and he handeled the fishing like a pro too. Next time you golf at the Big Fish Golf Course,stop in and ask Scott for his fish stories. we set out with mostly sunny skies and even though it was hot, the SW wind tempered it to a point. The wind was strong enough to make an excellent walleye chop and the walleyes cooperated.

Using my lead-free jigs we boated 15 walleyes keeping only two of them. Could have kept about 5 more marginal ones, but George and Scott are good sportsman and kept to a self imposed 15" limit. We also hauled in a ton of crappies keeping 7 over 11" and let most go to grow. We wound up the day with a little bit of every thing, northern,rock bass, smallies, perch, and a lot of bluegills keeping three for the pan. In the end we had a hefty stringer.

The walleyes started out hitting the lead-free jigs with minnows and later showed a preference for leeches.Have both baits along. The crappies were real consistent on the minnows and the rest of the species hit different baits not showing a preference for either. Again, have both baits along. I find I can keep minnows alive in a 5 gallon bucket with a foam liner for an entire day without ever changing the water.. Even in this heat. We had most of our success on woody humps that dropped into 18-22 feet of water. Everything seemed to be feeding there. Saw some bug casings in one spot, but not a lot of them. Surface water temps were up to 81 and as it varies, it will hit the preferred temperature ranges for different species of bugs and we will see many more bug hatches in the future. All the fish have big shoulders so they have been feeding well. A good healthy fishery. The future for the Big Chip is very bright.

Rememder, be a leader and use lead-free. It's for our childrens and grandchildrens sake. Thanks. Good luck fishing everyone.

Walleyemaxx