Wolf River Walleye Report 4/7/11

Took an afternoon trip to the Wolf River between New London and Fremont in hopes of tangling with a few pre-spawn Walleyes moving upriver towards their spawning marshes.  On the trip over to the river, my brother set a goal of catching a 20 incher.  I told him it was possible but not probable, considering the majority of the females are already further upriver awaiting the proper conditions to spawn.  That didn't seem to phase him, he was still gonna catch a 20 incher!  We launched at 4:00 and headed straight to one of my favorite spots.

Catch of the Day

To our satisfaction, there were no boats fishing the area!  I didn't waste any time when we reached our destination.  I had a minnow on my jig, trolling motor in the water, and a bite before my brother even had a minnow on his rod!  He about flipped when I said get the net while he was netting himself a minnow!  I wasn't kidding either!  I had to hold the fish in the water while he scrambled to fetch the net, then I gently glided my first Wolf River Walleye into the net.  It was a solid 17" male Walleye that quickly went into the live well so I could get my jig back in the water!

We continued our drift, vertical jigging in deep water, when I watched my brother set the hook.  The fish escaped after two cranks of his reel, but it was a good sign that we were on to something!  Our next pass resulted in 3 solid bites, but none of them stayed hooked long enough to make it to the boat.  Stinger hooks would've been a good bet, its too bad I left them in the truck!

We kept with our program and continued to bang a fish on every drift or two.  On one of the drifts, I had just stopped the boat and sent my jig down, when my brother yelled "I got one"!  I turned around to see his rod doubled over and sent his drag screaming.  I looked at him and said, "I think this may be your 20 incher!"

The fish stayed down and ran several times before showing itself.  It was a 20 incher alright!  He guided the fish towards the net, a plump 28" Northern!  Grant pulled the fish out of the net and held it up for a picture, that is until the fish had other ideas.  The fish flopped out of his hands, bounced off the side of the boat, and plopped back into the river. 

Oh well it was back to fishing for Walleyes!  My brother had caught his 20 incher, which he was pumped about!  The fish in our area had slowed down after about 2 hours and 5 Walleyes, so we headed to another one of my favorite spots.

This time we weren't so lucky when it came to other boats.  There were 8 boats anchored along this stretch that can be dynamite right now vertical jigging.  The anchored boats were catching a few, so I can just imagine how many we could've caught if the spot was open! 

The spot was full, so we tried a couple other spots just downriver from there.  We had a couple short bites but were unable to bring anything to the boat.  With about an hour of fishing left, we decided to head back to our starting spot and try and catch a few more before darkness set in.

This proved to be a good move, as I popped a nice 15" Walleye on the very first drift and Grant lost one half way up a minute later. 

The first trip of the season on the Wolf River was a success, resulting in 6 nice Walleyes and a Northern!  I will be taking the weekend off and then getting back out a few times in the next week, as the fish should finish spawning and be heading back towards Lake Winnebago in search of an easy meal!