The weather this week continued cool. Like many fall weeks we had lots of changeable weather – sun, clouds, rain, and winds from all around the compass. But the key part of the weather this week is that it stayed cool every day – and the nights were even colder. This was enough to bring lake surface temps down to the low to mid 60’s and keep them there. A significant change from surface temps a week ago.
That means there is not a great deal of temperature difference between 10-foot-deep water and 40-foot-deep water, and big walleyes will feel comfortable chasing prey into lots of different depths. And by the end of the week the guides’ daily reports showed exactly that. Boats were targeting walleye in a wide range of locations – our last two ‘round table’ meetings of the week had boats catching good walleyes in transition depths of 10-15 feet, and other boats still catching lots of fish in 35-40 feet.
Looking back over the week’s reports, even with all that change in weather and water temps, there was one thing that stayed consistent – Rock. Just like most of the summer our high volume came primarily from rock structures. Summer and transition sand often held some fish, but for most days we stayed focused on rock and sand remained a secondary pattern.
We averaged 9 boats on the water per day this week, for a total of 53 guided days. The guide sheets averaged 34 walleyes over 18 inches per day, and the highest daily total was 103 fish on the sheet. For the week we caught and released 20 walleyes over 27 inches, including 5 – 28’s, and 3 over 29 inches.
Pike fishing – We switched it up from last week, when we had almost no time chasing northerns. This week, most days we had some boats investing a few hours in the afternoons to hunting big pike. From past falls we’ve come to expect big pike to show up when fall weather arrives. But the fall weather arrived pretty early this year, and lots of main lake weed beds are still thick and green. Those big northerns still have lots of choices when they’re looking for a weed-bed to hang out in, and we ended up having to hunt for them in summer spots as well as our regular fall stuff. There were afternoons when we ran out of time before we could get to enough weed-beds to contact a big fish. Lots of the guide staff were hoping for a surge of big pike with the fall weather, and we put in more time chasing them. Here’s hoping that once more main lake weed-beds die off, we’ll get those big northerns showing up in their usual fall spots more consistently. For the week we caught and released 10 northerns over 37 inches, including 3 – 39’s and 1 over 40.
With the lake surface temps dropping and both walleye and northern patterns changing, “the formula” became even more important this week. Fish deep, shallow, rock, sand, slow, fast – keep shifting gears and trying the experiments and let the fish tell you what they want that day.
