The Winnebagoland area endured a week of scattered showers, normal temperatures, and a constant breeze this week. The water clarity varies around the lake, and most areas have a modest stain to the appearance of the water. There is some algae bloom appearing in the rivers and bays, well behind typical seasonal patterns. Water temps are in the mid 70 degree range.
Last week’s report still holds a lot of relevance this week. Many of the patterns and locations have gone unchanged over the past week.
Walleyes can be taken on any number of methods including trolling, casting, jigging, and slip bobbers. The constant change last week with wind, hit n miss showers and variable cloud cover really didn’t allow for a single method to outperform the others. Anglers need to be versatile, almost by the hour, until a stable stretch of weather sets in on the area.
Casting Cranks: The weed beds continue to thicken throughout the entire system — so casting cranks can be a frustrating method of looking for eyes. Try to find the outer edge of the weeds and work it first, and then move in to the pockets with short, controlled casts. The bait fish are hanging out in these pockets, so the strikes can be pretty intense with attacking walleyes. Also give some of the points a try where the bottom composition is gravel or rock.
Trolling: The Kalibus Reef area is producing ‘eyes in the 14-16 inch range on cranks like Flicker Shads in black and gold, blue or Hollywood. The North Shore Golf Club area is still giving up ‘eyes and saugers in the 15-19 inch range, especially on purple colored cranks or bladed harnesses. We worked the southern area of the lake this week. The southwest shore and center portions of the lake were particularly slow for trolling. We were able to pick up some good walleyes in the 16-24 inch size on the first break lines coming off the mud on the east shore (especially in 10 foot depths near Deadwood Point). This was a bright colored Reef Runner rip shad bite in size #5/200 series. Weeds are problematic and lures need to be cleaned about every 10 minutes to keep them running efficiently. 60 feet behind the Off Shore planner board at 1.7-1.9 miles per hour.
While filleting some of these fish, most had emerald shiners of about 2-3 inches in their stomach. This indicates a smaller size crank should be used currently to match the forage.
Jigging/Slip bobbers: The reefs were hit and miss all week. Long Point had some fish on it early in the week and then went quiet. The key to the reefs is to fish the windy side points where possible. One of our members left a post that Blackbird Reef was producing eyes on leeches. Keep the bait deep in the water column whether you are using slip bobbers or trolling.
Perch fishing remains uneventful. There are daily success stories, but in general the guys are picking up a few here and there. The transition zone outside of Fisherman’s Road has the best reports, along with in front of Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac.
My Fishing Partner rolled out some major updates this week. The coolest one is the “On the water updates” via Twitter. On the weekends, I will try to give you updates to what areas are hot or cold, and those messages can be sent via text to your cell phone (or viewed on the website). So if you are on the water, you can get real time fishing reports, in your boat. Just click the “follow updates link” on the front page and get signed up. The service is free, but your cell phone provider text rates may be charge to your cell phone bill, if applicable.
We also introduced the Google Earth partner finder. You can now search for a partner by the interactive map, versus looking thru the entire database of registered users. I would love to hear your opinions on the new upgrades. All of our information is free to our visitors. So get on the water, have fun, catch some fish and send us a report when you are done. [email protected].
