Fathers Day Walleye Action

The weather forecast for Fathers Day was far to nice to pass up an opportunity to get on the water with my father and father-in-law for some Walleye fishing on Lake Winnebago!  Highs in the lower 80's, and a nice breeze to keep the bugs off did the trick! 

We launched the boat at 6 am and headed to the middle of the lake to troll the mudflats, which have been on fire for the past few weeks, which wasn't the case for us!  We spent the first three hours of our trip trolling a variety of crank baits and different depths, speeds, and in many different colors.  At the end of it all we only had 1 dink Whitebass to show for our efforts.  We also noticed that we weren't the only ones struggling to catch Walleyes, as the nets were quiet all morning.

Three hours was already to long to wait for a Walleye, so it was time to make a move!  We decided to head towards the west shore and fish some shallow water.  This turned out to be the right call, as we were able to land 15 Walleyes in the next two hours, and lost a couple other nice ones behind the boat!

The fish were shallow despite the high sun and only slight ripple on the water!  Water temperatures were in the low 70's, and the clarity was around 4'.  Both fathers had a blast reeling in fish and flopping one out of the net quick to net another!  It was like they were kids again, the looks on their faces was priceless!  I hope to have many more opportunities to spend a day on the water with them!

After fishing, we had a fathers day cookout, and I cleaned all the fish for them. (Won't offer to do that again!) 

Mercury National Results

Many teams brought impressive weights to the scales both days of the 2012 Mercury National Walleye Tournament, held on Lake Winnebago out of Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin June 9-10, 2012.  It took more than a 16 pound average per day to make the money, which is totally the opposite of last year, as 16 pounds for both days would've put you in the money!

The winners reported catching their fish in the mud of Lake Winnebago, pulling spinners to entice their fish to bite.  Their two day total of 45.12 pounds was enough to earn a $13,000 check!  A good majority of the boats fished the mud for the tournament, but there were some nice weights brought to the scales from the weeds on Lake Winnebago as well as from the upriver lakes of the system.

The day one leaders faltered a bit, but still ended up taking a top five finish in a 300 boat tournament, which is tough to do!   Complete results of the tournament can be found at http://www.fishtfm.com/

There are Walleyes everywhere in the system right now, and they seem to be hungry everywhere as well, as many anglers reported catching 30+ Walleyes a day during both prefishing and the tournament!   Next weekend brings the annual Otter Street fishing tournament, which means another busy week on the waters of Lake Winnebago!  Expect the solid fishing to continue for the next couple weeks, until water clarity deteriorates and the bait fish abundance increases.