A variable weather pattern descended upon Lake Winnebago the past week, leaving anglers with changing conditions all week. The water column was very clear by Thursday, but strong winds stirred up the water, leaving a strong stain to the water color by the weekend. Water temps are in the low 60’s on Lake Winnebago, and about 65 degrees in Lake Poygan.
A massive lake fly hatch occurred, and the east shore has been heavily affected by the hatch, as the prevailing west winds have blown the flies across the lake.
This week was a “crappie” week on Lake Winnebago. Huge numbers of post spawn and spawning crappies entered onto the shallow rocky reefs, bays, harbors and into the feeder streams. In most cases on the south shore the crappies were post spawn.
These fish were starting to filter off of the reefs into deeper water by Sunday evening. The sheer numbers of crappies was mind-numbing, and thousands of these fish were harvested, many of which were in the 13-15 inch ranges. You can check out the myfishinngpartner.com video on the main page, where the group had about 150 crappies on Thursday or at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0KmDklrNNA
Walleyes were in many different regions across the system. In no means was it a free for all, but walleyes could be found in just about every depth range of the lake. In the areas where the lake fly hatch was significant, lower catch rates were observed.
One area which was active this week was the 14-16 foot ranges, especially on windy days. A crawler harness bite was starting to fire up. I hesitate to announce a mud bite, but we are on the verge of seeing greater activity in these regions. The fish staged in these areas, have been larger. If the mud bite were to develop, it would be about 3 weeks ahead of normal trends.
I checked the southeast shore and found a variety of fish including pike, sheephead, crappies, smallmouth bass, white bass and walleyes. The walleyes I caught were running on the small size, but some larger eyes were taken near me. There is an emerging weed line in the southern parts of the lake.
Along the western shore, shallow water was also holding walleyes. There has been a change of preference by these fish from minnows and leeches over to crawlers. Slip bobbers did very well this week, as did dragged jigs.
The north shore walleye trolling bite is getting hot. Give some stick baits a try here, with blue being an excellent color choice.
The 10-13 foot ranges held a few walleyes also, but not as many as last week. We continue to see the Smash Shads doing extremely well, and actually out producing Flicker Shads. Salmo Hornets remain the gold standard behind the Off Shore Planer boards, typically run at 1.7 mph- 1.9 mph. Sheephead were very common.
The White Bass run has started in the Wolf and Fox Rivers. The run is expected to really pick up the next few days to weeks. The next warm spell should provide some fantastic opportunities for the whiteys.
Terry’s bar Tournament (Oshkosh) is the only walleye tournament we could find this coming weekend. About 49 boats in this field, so tournament traffic should be light. There also is a bass tournament based out of Lake Winneconne.
That’s all folks! [email protected] is my email, if you have a fishing report which you wish to share. Otherwise, be sure to submit your Winnebago Master Angler applications on the front page of the web page.
