The Mid Summer Groove Continues:
It was definitely summer on Lac Seul this week. High temps were in the low to mid 80s most days and it didn’t always cool off at night. There were a few storms that skirted south of us, but it was a consistently warm and mostly dry week on the water. As usual, there were a few surprises.
We are usually hitting main lake deep water sand structures hard at this time of year. Often, they produce more than 70% of the walleyes on the stat sheets. This year – Not! For the second week in a row, the main lake sand was silent. We checked it often, but only a handful of fish were caught or even seen on sonar. Main lake rock adjacent to a deep-water basin in 19 – 25 ft. was the ticket. Gulp pulled at speed with big plastics were just as effective as light jigs (1/8 – ¼ oz.) with minnows. The answer varied depending on the circumstances. If you scanned a spot and found individual fish scattered, then it was time to cover water with Gulp. As you cruised along with Gulp and located a pod of walleyes that didn’t bite, you hit them with a waypoint and went back on them with live bait vertical. The hard part is, there were many traditional regions and spots that just were not holding fish.
Our 2024 guide staff is excellent, and everyone knows that they are all responsible to go out and check everything and bring it back to the group. We all expect a few of our spot checks to be blanks, but this week, there were many in a row. On several days, entire regions were quiet. And we moved on. On Lac Seul, we never run out of spots to check, we just run out of time.
Most of you return readers are expecting to hear about a walleye weed bite with all this hot weather. There were a few, but it was mostly small walleyes. There were almost no walleyes over 25 caught from the weeds this week.
Despite the challenges, it was another great walleye week at the Wheel. We caught and released 49 walleyes over 27 in., including 10 – 28s, 3 – 29s, and 3 – 30s. Guide sheets averaged 35 walleyes over 18 in. per boat per day. The highest daily total for the week was turned in by first year guide Madi Smith with 87 walleyes with the Dunlap group including a 27 and a 28.
The pike fishing was hit and miss. There were several reports of quiet afternoons, but there were also a few really big pike caught by those guests who stuck with it. For the week, we caught and released 11 pike over 37 in., including 2 – 38s, 2 – 39s, 2 – 41s, and Mike Dettmann caught a massive 43.25. Big spoons are fast and efficient, and they work when the weeds are topped out.
The Take Away:
After a hard morning, Senior guide Brandon Ouellette said, I am going to stick with the formula. I am going to bounce back and forth between weeds, rock, and sand. And then he netted a giant 30 in. Walleye for Matt Tuttolomondo. In his own words, “it was a pretty average day, until it worked for a big one!”
