The weather started cold this week! I broke out my heavy duty cold weather gear for the first time since spring. A big front moved through at the beginning of the week, bringing lots of rain and even thunderstorms. After the front, nights remained cold most of the week, and some big winds mixed the water column thoroughly. Between these two effects, lake surface temps dropped, and the water was a similar temperature from the surface to the thermocline.
We’ve learned over the years that when that happens, the walleye scatter to many different depths – and so our guides do too! Boats were quick to check shallow water as soon as the big front hit, and our biggest fish of the week was caught in 15 feet of water – at speed, with plastics.
After the front there were lots of cool, sunny, calm days. Those kinds of days meant our best production came from slow, live bait presentations in deep water, and our next biggest fish was caught in 38 feet – a finesse bite, sitting still with live bait.
Warm nights returned just last night, and today some boats were able to find good numbers with speed at medium depths – a return to the patterns we were seeing before the big weather change. I think it’s safe to say, this week the walleye bite ran the whole spectrum.
This is also the week every year when some of our staff members start to leave for other seasonal commitments, so this week we had just 63 guided days, averaging 11 boats on the water per day – about two thirds of an average summer week. For the week we caught and released 23 walleyes over 27 inches, topping out with a 29.5 incher. We averaged 35 walleye over 18 inches per boat, per day.
Only a handful of afternoons were dedicated to pike fishing this week. We noticed main lake weed beds beginning to thin out, and some big pike were caught on rocks. Spoons and in-line spinners remained our best producers. For the week we caught and released 11 Northerns over 37 inches with a 40, 41, and a 43. And there are always a few incidental big bass caught this time of year, 2 over 19 inches this week.
