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That made for a fairly normal spring walleye run in most places. I did well on smaller fish on the inland lakes during the post-spawn period and the “Bay” run was better than average for size and numbers. The fishing really picked up in early and mid June with several days seeing limits of fish by noon.
As summer started to roll around, one of my goals was to find some new walleye water where my odds of putting eating size fish in the boat would improve. I also wanted to see if I could find a bite that started a bit earlier in the day. Most of my summer walleyes come right at dark or later and tend to be of trophy size (I release everything over 23”s). It is hard for many folks to stay on the water that late and many want to take fish home with them. I did manage to find a couple of new lakes that fit the bill. While these pictures were taken after dark, most of the fish were in the boat before the sun went down.
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Overall, my summer period was the best I have ever had for numbers of walleye. The Valentine Boy’s are shown above in a picture that repeated itself much of the summer…………a nice limit of eyes and heading for home by 10PM. The average size fish suffered a bit for wanting to put more numbers in the boat, but even a few big fish were caught by folks. Here my wife holds her biggest walleye a nice 8 ½# fish. The one that Don Piper is holding was the first fish taken out of LCO on a calm summer evening, it went 7#s.
Below is Brooks Fleming with a couple of nice eaters and Mike Valentine with a choice fish, as well.
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I do not keep track of the walleyes that I catch under 5#s, but there where more this year than in years past. Of those fish over 5#s, there were 13 boated (down from 19 last year) with my wife leading the pack with her 8.5 pound fish. |
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My summer musky fishing took a back seat to the good walleye fishing that was going on. Many folks took the opportunity to get in on the action. The musky fishing that I did do was productive with fish being boated more days than not. In hindsight, I wish I would have done more summer musky fishing, as the fall period dealt me another slow period as it has for several falls now. One of the more memorable days this summer was August 8th. I had two brothers, both of which have been in my boat before, John and Tom Bordenave. John has boated several nice muskies with me in the past, usually at his brothers expense.
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This day we were just hoping to get a fish on for Tom so that he could keep from having to put up with being out done by his brother for another year. We were doing some trolling when ten minutes into the day Tom bangs a nice 40” fish (his first) to take all the pressure off. The next fish was to go to John, and an hour later he brought a 36”er to net. Then it started, the two of them going back and forth as to how to divvy up the rods and who was going to get the next fish. |
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After much debate, Tom talked his brother into having only one rod (the flatline, straight off the back of the boat) and he would take all the rest of the trolling board lines. The logic being that he had been short changed in the past on their trips.
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The two had no more than made their “gentleman's agreement” when I turned the boat to go back along the same structure that John had just gotten the last fish off of. True to form, just as we bumped up along that underwater point a rod goes off, and you guessed it, it’s the flatline out the rear of the boat! Tom had a four-to-one advantage, and his brother STILL came up with the nicest fish of the day. Although a bit light, it measured up an impressive 46 ½”s and topped off a three fish day. Keep your chine up Tom, there is always next season. Sounds like your brother is staying in Arizona next year, so you will have ALL the rods! We also got another Bordenave into the action by getting Tom’s son his first musky later in the year. He landed this nice 42” fish on a Q/S rig while sucker fishing in late October.
As summer rolled into fall, the fish were still coming with regularity, but not a lot of size was showing up. In early September I was contacted by a gentleman from Texas, named D. R. Powers. He was staying at the Chippewa Campground and had run into a client of mine there who has had some success with me in years past. He recommended that D.R. look me up. We hooked up just before he was to pull his rig down the road and out of the Wisconsin area. |
Having never musky fished before, D.R. was just interested in going out for a half-day to get a taste of, "What all the excitement was about". We meet up on September 3rd. The plan was to cast the Chip in the PM. I picked up D.R. at his trailer and we hit the water. The first order of business was to get him acquainted with the casting gear. He told me that he had done some bass fishing throughout the years, so the bait casters would not be a total mystery to him. A couple of things about D.R. to make you appreciate this story: One, he is over 70 years young, and two, he walks with two artificial knees. I was a little skeptical as to how well he would handle the musky gear. I fixed him up with a rod and bait, gave him a quick 101 course on its use, and turned him loose.
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Right off the bat this guy is ripping off casts like he has been doing it all his life! After a couple more pointers, he was off to the races. We worked over the first spot VERY thoroughly, and just before we were about to move, it happened. BANG! A nice fish impales itself on our offering. Less than 40 minutes musky fishing and D.R. has himself a nice upper 20# class fish head shaking a yellow Boo Tail from one end of the boat to the other. If I was impressed with how well this guy could cast, I was even more impressed with how he fought that fish. It was no easy task as the fish was around the boat, tried to get under the boat, made a couple of power runs out from the boat, and all the time D.R. never gave it a hint of a chance of getting off. After a hairy net job, she was being held for pictures. The funny part of this whole episode was that D.R. had no idea what he had just done. He could tell that I was a little excited and asked, "Is that a nice musky as muskies go?" | I tried to think of how to explain to him that fish like that just don’t come after a half hour of fishing. We had talked of whitetail hunting in Texas, so I posed it to him like this, “D.R. would you expect to shoot a nice ten point buck the first half hour that you ever spent chasing whitetails?” He stopped and pondered a second, then took a second look at that fish, “That’s a pretty nice one, huh?” Yes, D.R. that was a ten pointer in the musky world, great job, man!
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I’m just glad I had the chance to see you battle that fish; it was an honor for me. Not many people could just pick up a musky stick and do what you did with it. Five days before that fish, Brooks Fleming boated his biggest skie on Grindstone Lake with me. It was the biggest of a four fish day……22#s.
Those fish kind of ended the summer pattern that had treated me so good for numbers. We never really got too much of that blistering heat like we have had the last few years in July and August. I’m not sure if that is why the summer bite stayed so consistent or if it was due to other factors. In hindsight, I’m sure glad it was as good as it was because the fall was slow ………AGAIN!
Things looked like they were going to fall right into place. Surface temps around the area were right where I like to see them come mid September. |
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Turnover was right on cue, coming on the smaller lakes late in September and the big lakes went early in October. Paul Didzerekis put a nice fish in the boat during those great days just prior to turnover. We were fishing one of the deep, clear water lakes in the Hayward area when he had a big hit on a trolling board. After a long, hard battle, he boated the biggest hybrid to ever see my boat. The fish was not very long (only 45 ½’s), but what a chunk. I estimated the fish at 28#s, but she might well have gone more. Paul found out just how hard one of these fish can battle as it stayed deep the whole fight and just refused to come up. Congratulations Paul on the prettiest musky I have ever seen and great job in landing that girl!
After turnover was done the fishing became very spotty. It is really a mystery to me as to why. The last few falls have not been anything to write home about; I have attributed that to them being so warm. That was not the case with this one. In fact the first weekend of November saw some of the coldest open water fishing that I have ever done. When I got to the boat landing that Saturday morning the air temp was 4 below zero! Busted some ice to fish that day. One thing that happened with the weather turning so cold, so fast, was that the cisco spawn was over before it started. At any rate, I stuck it out longer than I probably should have. Boated a few fish in the late fall period, but not much for size and the action was sub-par. The only day worth mentioning was October 22nd. |
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| I did not have a booking and was not going to fish due to things being so slow. I decided to get up early to check conditions, if things looked good I might get out. I already knew that I was going to have a moon-over-head condition at 10:30AM which puts me into a good moon window from 9:30AM till 11:30AM. In looking at a surface map that morning, I saw that it looked like I was going to get a barometer drop sometime that morning as well. I might as well fish, can’t catch ‘em by going back to bed. So off to the lake I go. Hit the water about 8AM and had a game plan worked out in my head. I was going to stay deep all day. The last time I had been on this particular lake ALL the bait was tight to the bottom in 40’ to 55’ of water. If the bait was still there that is were I was going to stay. Sure enough, my first trolling pass showed me some nice baitfish schools in deep water – 40’ to 45’. And even better than a few days earlier, the bait was off the bottom, suspended down 35’ to 40’! Didn’t take much to get me excited with as slow as the action had been. I had three lines out, a board to each side and a flatline off the back. The inside board was 35’ down and the outside was 40’ down. As my moon window approached, I started to work around an area that was holding quite a bit of bait. It was also an area that has given me some nice fish before, but not as deep as I was trying to score now, however. I had everything I wanted, but was not very optimistic about my chances. I was like a dog that had been beat one too many times………..just felt like I was going to get beat again. It was 11:15AM, as I took a big turn to come through that area one more time, I couldn’t help but wonder what a guy had to do to score a nice fish these days. With the boat over 50’ of water and my back to my inside board, I hear that sweetest of sweet sounds: drag being RIPPED from that inside rod like it had caught the bottom, which I knew was impossible. As I picked up the rod, I knew it was a good fish right off. This fish stayed deep the whole time, which was good because I had to be careful with the rod off the back of the boat that she did not get in it. By staying deep, she would stay under the crackbait on that rod. It was a real struggle to get the board to the boat and unclip it – always a time of apprehension with a nice fish on a board. Once the board was off I played the fish pretty light; it had been a tough fight till then with LOTS of pressure on the equipment and I didn’t want anything bad to happen now. Later, I would realize how important that little judgment would be. She was getting close to the boat and I knew I was going to get my first look at what I had. The net was in place, only an arms reach away. She got to within 6 or 8 feet of the surface and glided by the boat out about 15’. I could see right there that I was in trouble. I could see ALL of the crankbait and I could see that I had her just hooked on the rear treble. At this point I hit the free-spool to get any pressure off the fish. As I did this, she came to the surface and came about 1/3rd of the way out of the water and rolled. I knew I would pick up the tension only to find this nice fish gone! As I slowly reeled in line, I could feel her still there and unrolling out of the line; she was still on the hook! I knew this was it; I had one chance at this fish. I put just enough pressure on her to get her moving towards the boat, picked up my extra line and with rod in one hand and net in the other, she glided right into the net without so much as a whimper. That fish made my whole fall. She was the longest fish I’ve ever boated (50 ¾”) and a close second for weight (38#s). For those wondering, she was weighed in the net before release. |
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