It is hard to believe that this is my last fishing report of the year. Brett will take over next week when I head back to Iowa to get ready for another Fall deer guiding season. It was an absolute weather roller coaster of a week and as always, it had an enormous impact on the fishing.
We started the week with Blazing hot, flat calm conditions, descending into a late Fall style massive rain driven cold front event, and ended with balmy humidity. The guide crew takes it all in stride and when the conditions are at their worst, we still do relatively well. We did take the time to explain how the weather effects the walleye bite and how it changes our approach.
For the week, we caught and released 30 walleyes over 27 in., including 5 – 28s, 1 – 29, and 2 – 30s. It was a slower week for 27s, but still good for the really big fish. Volume did go down, especially during midweek when sustained winds were 20 mph gusting to 30. The fish were likely biting, but we could only effectively fish 20% of our spots. Guide sheets averaged 30 walleyes over 18 in. per boat per day. We did still bounce back and forth between big jigs and plastics and lighter jigs and minnows. Live bait with light jigs were the top producers for the week.
There was a 39 and 42 in. pike caught this week, but the weather just didn’t allow for much casting.
The Take Away: When the weather turns bad, you can whine and cry or make the best of it. Some of our guests caught their personal bests this week.
