The area had stable weather for the majority of the week until a record breaking cold front slammed the Winnebago region on Saturday and Sunday. The cold front threw a monkey wrench into one of the strongest walleye bites of the season. Water temps remain unchanged and have hovered in the mid 60 degree range for several weeks now. The water clarity had been improving; however Saturday’s wind and rain stirred the pot to give a moderately stained appearance.
Lake Winnebago has walleyes in various stages of post spawn, pre summer patterns, and locations. Some of the fish have moved out to the mud, but not in huge numbers as of yet. Many of the eyes are still in and around deep water rocky points or in emerging weed beds. The main lake has featured some high quality fish, many in excess of 22 inches.
Trolling has been the most successful tactic this week. Cranks and harnesses are doing equally well. Cranks have been strongest in the 3-13 foot ranges, and crawler harnesses seemed to produce better in the deep water. Blue and purple have been the dominate colors. The best mud locations this week was just outside of Oshkosh and the far north shore.
Some of the western reefs (Both north and south of Oshkosh) have been giving up eyes with either a slip bobber or jig matched with a leech. Leeches have outperformed crawlers significantly this week. Many of the reefs are still full of sheephead, and they can be more than annoying. The southeastern portion of the lake is full of sheephead based on multiple reports of this area. White bass were found in great numbers on the north end of the lake.
On Saturday, multiple tournaments were on the main lake. The Full Throttle Tourney out of Oshkosh was won with 21 pounds (6.69 big fish) in Lake Poygan trolling cranks. The Fisherman’s Road Tourney was won with 24.9 pounds (5.89 big fish) trolling cranks on the main lake. The Van Dyne Lions also held their annual tournament with approximately 15 pounds winning. This was also a main lake trolling bite. This tournament had over an 85% live release rate of all the fish caught which is almost unheard of for a tournament of this size. Nice Job Lions!
Lake Poygan and Lake Winneconne have had solid action with walleyes. The quality of these fish is generally smaller than the fish on the main lake. Most eyes are in the 15-20 inch ranges, with an occasional larger fish. The canes are starting to green up, and this adds oxygen into the water around the cane. These highly oxygenated areas become magnets for walleyes, and should be checked out when in this area. Orange colored cranks have been the hot color this week, followed by blues and greens.
We focused on the Fox River in Oshkosh this week. There are a lot of carp, sheephead and white bass in the river currently. We did pick up walleye, but they tended to run on the smaller size (6-20 inches). Green or white jigs took all of the walleyes on half a crawler. All these fish were tight to the shoreline and had a very light bite.
This is a major weekend for tournaments, so be sure to check out the ‘bago calendar on the front page to find where the tournaments are launching from to avoid congestion. Fisherman’s Road on the east shore is open, but road construction on Hwy 151 makes it difficult to get to the launch, especially from the south. We will be fishing Walleye Weekend and are listed as team 27 (300 teams). Be sure to stop in and say hello. I’ll be on the water all week, weather permitting. Keep the reports coming [email protected]. A couple more hats are going out this week. Thanks to Pat and Steve.
