Seasonable temperatures with windy conditions engulfed Winnebagoland this week. The water clarity was horrible to start the week, but improved greatly over the week to give anglers some visibility into the water column. As the clarity improved, so did the fishing. Water temps took a dive over the weekend, but are consistently near the upper 50 degree mark. Friday had water temps in excess of 60 degrees on Lake Winnebago.
There were several very big stories on the system this week. Crappies were going nuts all over the system. Most area harbors, feeder creeks, and shallow bays had great action for crappies on small minnows. We also picked up quite a few trolling this week, all on black and gold flicker shads or black and gold shad raps. The females seemed to be hard with eggs, and were not quite to full spawning stage just yet. Slip bobbers were also an excellent method to target these fish if you locate a school.
The second major story is the white bass run. It seemed the run started hard, and then shut down. The best bite to date is north of Winneconne in the Wolf River. Areas to target are the drop offs. River rigs tipped with either a minnow or crawler had the best results. Bobbers fished about 3 feet below the surface was working well. However, flies were very slow this week.
The Fond du Lac River is active for white bass, and some days were producing catches in the 50 fish range from shore. Overall, this bite was hit ‘n miss. While trolling this week, I was moving reefs at 4.5-5 mph’s to eliminate some dead water. All of a sudden all of the boards went back hard full of white bass. If you are targeting white bass trolling, I would give a faster trolling speed a try.
Walleyes. The southern end of the lake was doing well for eyes. In the Long Point area, fish seem to be concentrated in shallower water or on the reef top. The adjacent deeper water was slow. This was not the same in the area Blank’s Supper Club in North Fond du Lac. The active fish were on the deeper structure, in the 7-11 foot ranges. Seeking minimal depth changes was critical for success. Many of these walleyes were sitting on the break lines of just a foot of depth contour change. Shallow water trolling was less productive in this area. The Third Reef had some solid action for the early part of the week and really shut down over the weekend. Leeches under slip bobbers produced most of the fish.
The south east corner of the lake had a solid open water walleye bite also. The 7-10 foot ranges had nice sized walleyes scattered over the flats and emerging weed beds. These fish were taken with Shad Raps in high visibility colors such as fire tiger or Reef Runner “sun spot” (custom color). Targeting the mid water column seemed to be the best method. The quality of the fish in this area was noticeable larger than other surrounding areas, with walleyes consistently in the 20 plus inch range.
Unfortunately, I had no reports from the north end of the lake, so I have nothing to pass along.
The upper lakes of Lake Poygan and Winneconne have a nice white bass bite occurring. It is not full throttle just yet. The walleye bite has been consistently slow on the trolling bite. The Cane beds have had some nice action when conditions are favorable. Lake Buttes des Morts had some action for walleyes at Sunset Point on leeches or crawlers during low light periods. Catfish activity has started to pick up recently in the Fox River also.
Have a safe Memorial Day Weekend. Please send your reports to [email protected]. Thanks in advance.
