It is always the Weather!
It is the number one topic of conversation at every scheduled and unscheduled guide meeting. What was the wind yesterday? What is the forecast? How Hot? How Cold? Is it too windy to get to (fill in the blank)?
We truly do not know why summer walleyes shift back and forth from main lake rock to main lake sand. I have heard guides with plausible explanations, but we have no facts. All we know for sure is that they do move all the time and we have no choice but to chase them wherever they go.
The weather story this week was all over the board. We started with hot humid summer, mid-week we had a massive windy cold front that felt like mid-September, and we ended the week with a warm front along with some humidity and thunderstorms. And the walleyes were everywhere.
When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. Early in the week, they were deep on main lake rock. At the end of the week, we had a “shallower water kind of a weed bite, but not really.” Mid-week, we caught a few fish at absolutely every conceivable corner of the lake. Today, there were many walleyes caught on the shallow side of grade A, major main lake sand spots. From a guide’s perspective, it was very, very challenging.
And yet, when I review the numbers, we still did well considering the weather. For the week, we caught and released 27 walleyes over 27 in., including 1 – 28, and 7 – 29s. Volume was up and down but averaged 40 walleyes over 18 in. per boat each day. The highest daily total was 82.
I can tell you that production was 50/50 between plastics pulled at speed and live bait fished vertical, but that will not help you understand this week. It was up and down and all over the place. If you were not open minded and flexible, then you got burned. This week was the pinnacle of, “every day is a clean slate“ and be ready to fish the extremes to figure it out.
We did not have many groups wanting to fish for big pike this week. There was some effort put in, but not near the number of hours as in the previous weeks. We caught and released 4 over 37 in., including 1 – 40, 1 – 43, and a 44. Spoons. Find a big patch of weeds near deep water and sling. That was the formula.
The take away: If we didn’t have weather and walleyes, what would we talk about? The puzzle gets refreshed every day.
