Weather-wise this week we had a bit of everything – an all day rain, thunderstorms, sunny and calm, and cloudy and windy. But it seemed like no matter the conditions, we found our walleye deep. This week our most consistent bites came from 30 – 40 feet, and almost no fish answered to speed or aggressive presentations, slow and subtle was the way to go. Our most successful days came from boats spending some time searching for steady bites. That meant lots of scanning with electronics, and spot checking any fish we see. Once we found biting fish, we had to move slowly with subtle presentations to really capitalize on those bites.
There were 65 guided days for the week, and we caught and released 24 walleyes over 27 inches, including 3 – 28’s and 1 – 29.5. Guide sheets averaged 30 walleyes over 18 inches per day, and the highest daily total was 65.
By my count of the guide sheets there were 9 afternoons spent piking this week, and our anglers caught and released 11 Northerns over 37 inches, including 1- 39 incher, and 2 – 40 inchers. The guides reported lots of weeds uprooted by the winds and floating, and some main lake weed patches almost gone. All the big pike are still coming from weed beds so far, but with weed beds dying off our guys have started checking rock with some success already – an early start to one of our favorite fall patterns.
And two big bass were caught this week, one 19 incher and one 20 incher – a nice bonus!
