Winnebago Fishing Report 6-22-08

Mother Nature sent us some excellent fishing weather, and the fish on Lake Winnebago responded with an aggressive bite.   Water temperatures reached into the upper 60’s to 70 degrees, and water clarity has improved greatly.

Lake Winnebago had an excellent perch bite happening this week.  These fish have solid size (7-11”) and can be found on most reef tops on the west shore or in the transition areas from rock to mud south of Fisherman’s road.  Dead sticks or slip bobbers were taking most of the perch with a small piece of crawler.  Many of these perch are just inhaling the bait and the action can be fast and furious.  The Third Reef was also holding perch and were best taken on red worms.  The northern tip of Long Point had a huge school of fish all weekend.

Walleyes are also on the reef tops system wide, especially when there is a chop on the water.  Pitching 1/16 or 1/8 oz. orange or black jigs worked well with a quarter of a crawler.  Slip bobbers with large leeches came in a close second.  Casting cranks produced no walleyes on the reef for us this week.  All the reefs have a few walleyes on them, but it is still work to bring in a limit.  Abrahams, Long Point and the reef 1.5 miles northwest of Fisherman’s Road (does anyone have a name for this reef?) had good walleye activity.

The mud bite continues to improve weekly.  The southern half of the lake is very slow on the trolling bite.  The northern half had much better action.  Areas near Calumet County Park, Stockbridge, and just north of Pipe had good action using crank baits.  The mouth of the Fox River had hit ‘n miss action.  Black and gold flicker shads or purple reef runners out produced all other colors by a mile.  Waverly Beach is giving up good sized walleyes in 17 feet of water.  Florescent colors worked well for sheephead and white bass.  Eyes were spread throughout the water column.  Thursday they were 90-110 feet behind the board, and Friday at about 25 ft.  My suggestion is to run baits staggered through the water column to determine where the active fish are located each day.   As for speed, 2.0 to 2.6 mph was ideal. We had also noticed a change in the size of the baits this month.  #7’s are getting much more action than the #5’s for larger walleyes.   Minnow raps are starting to work well also.  Harnesses were slow this week.  Reports I received indicated gold was the best color blade again this week.  I heard several strong reports of anglers picking off walleyes along the weed beds casting cranks.

The Wolf River still has dirty water.  Only a few reports of pike, bass and pan fish taken in the shallow bays.  Lake Poygan is doing well in Clark’s Bay and Horseshoe Hole.  Cranks trolled 15-25 feet behind the boards are snatching walleye and pike.  The colors of blue, rainbow and black are taking the most fish.  Walleyes generally are in the 14-20 inch range.  As always, we encourage your reports at [email protected]