2006 fishing reports

Sunday, November 19th

Today I fished with Jim Berna and except for early in the morning, fishing was a lot slower than yesterday.

The clouds from the last few days had not completely cleared away in the early morning hours and the fish remained in a positive mood until they did. Once that happened, bright, sunny, bluebird skies ruled the day and the fish went totally negative just like that.

Early morning temperatures were slightly colder than yesterday and the wind remained from the north at about 10 mph hour, switching to the west late in the morning.

All our fish came from 20-23' of water today and blades were again the best bait of the day. We did catch one nice 20-3/4" sauger on a jig/minnow combo but blades caught all the rest.

Despite the tough bite, our average size was better than normal with three out of the six caught being over 20" long.

Jim caught two saugers that were both 20-3/4" long and I caught a 21" long walleye. The other three, all saugers, ran 17-1/2, 18-3/4 and 19" long.

Looks like the weather is going to be quite nice this week with lots of sunshine and warmer temperatures predicted for the entire week. Should make for a great Thanksgiving.

Happy Turkey Day everybody and good luck to all you deer hunters!

Boog

Saturday, November 18th

Dick Majcher and Rob Linde joined me for their 2nd trip of year. We had and excellent outing in May and they were hoping for another good one today.

Early morning temperatures were running right about 32 degrees with cloudy skies and high humidity for this time of year. Winds were out of the north at about 10mph. The dampness in the air really cut through a guy today and had us pulling our collars and hoods up over our head for the entire day.

Surface water temperatures are running about 40 degrees in the main lake.

Things started out great. Dick and Rob are both very experienced fisherman but neither had any previous experience with blade baits, I was giving them a quick lesson on how to work it when Dick caught a 18-3/4" sauger before he even started jigging his blade. He was simply holding the blade a few inches off the bottom while watching my demonstration and the fish just smacked it. The fish didn't bite like that all day long but even with a slow period during the middle of the day, we still did pretty good.

We landed 13 walleyes and sauger between 15 and 20 inches long plus four more shorties.

Of those, Dick and Rob took only five home for a meal. The rest were released.

Most of our fish came on blades again today but a few were also caught on jigs and minnows and at least one nice sauger came on a jig/paddle tail combo. (green paddletail)

All fish came out of 18-23' of water. We did try a little shallower and deeper with no luck.

Rob Linde caught the biggest one today measuring in at 19-3/4" long.

Congratulations on a dandy sauger Rob. Nice job!

Here's an interesting thing we've seen several times with some of the really fat female saugers we've caught this fall. The eggs are literally coming out of them. It's not just one or two that we've seen this on either. I have not kept and actual count of how many but I'm thinking we've seen this on six or seven fish in the past three weeks. My guess is that these fish are becoming so fat, that some of the eggs, a small amount, is literally being pushed out of their body in the heat of the battle. I'm curious if any of you other fisherman out there have seen this? On a side note, I always try and encourage clients to release these fish regardless of whether or not it's 20" long and I'm happy to say that most clients do indeed release them.

Dick and Rob, it was great to be able to share my boat with you two again this year! Thanks much for hiring me and I hope you guys have a great winter.

Good luck and good fishing everyone!

Boog

Sunday, November 12th

Jim and Jimmy Lawler spent this chilly Sunday morning fishing for walleyes and saugers on Lake Wisconsin from my boat.

The air temperature started out at about 30 degrees, which was a bit colder than yesterday, but the wind was non-existent in the early morning hours so it actually didn't feel to bad out there.

Later on in the morning, south winds picked up and blew at around 10-15mph giving us a pretty good mid-morning chop on the water.

The walleyes and saugers didn't quite co-operate as well as yesterday.

We started out hitting the same spots as yesterday. Jim and his son Jimmy each put a few fish in the boat jigging blades before things got tough for us.

They were not biting as good as yesterday, but if a guy kept at it, he could still pick up a few here and there. And that's pretty much exactly what happened. I picked up a fish here and a fish there. Each time I caught one, I would give my rod to either Jim or Jimmy, hoping that this was the hot lure and they would be able to duplicate my success. Didn't happen.

We ended up putting seven fish between 15 and 21 inches long in the boat and the guys ended up taking home four fish for the fry pan, and we released two 20 inch plus saugers all before 12:30pm, so it wasn't really a bad day either.

Enjoyed meeting you Jim and Jimmy. Glad I was able to take you out on the lake you fished on when you were a youngster Jim! It's always interesting to hear the stories of what the lake was like 20 or 30 or more years ago. Many of my clients have some very interesting stories or other bits of history that they share with me and it's always something I very much look forward to hearing.

Thanks again for letting me be your fishing guide today!

Till next week, good luck out there guys and gals!

Boog

Saturday, November 11nth

Today is the day after the first big snow storm of the year. We probably got 2-3" here around Lake Wisconsin. Not a lot, just enough to turn everything white around the lake. Made for a real pretty boat ride early this morning.

My guest today were Kevin Reynolds and his good friend Frank Gavin. Kevin spent a half day fishing crappies with me earlier in the year and wanted to get out after some walleyes and saugers.

The weather was a bit chilly in the early morning hours. A chilly north wind blowing about 10-15mph and air temperatures in the low 30's was forcing us to keep our gloves and hats on.

Surface water temperatures were actually a bit warmer than last weekend and are now running right around 42 degrees in the main lake.

I decided to start the guys out with blade baits while I used a blade bait in one hand and a jig/minnow combo in the other. My intent was to quickly find out which bait they preferred today.

The first spot only produced one sauger, and was caught on a blade bait in 21' of water. Despite several more passes through the same area, we could not get another fish in the boat.

Time to move on to another spot. Off we went.

The next spot produced three more fish in the first five minutes, all caught on blades in 18-20' of water. This was looking good! I don't remember how many fish we ended up catching at this spot, but we spent at least two hours fishing it over with blades before moving once again.

We finally moved on to the next spot when the bite died down.

Fishing was going to be a bit tougher for most of the rest of the day. I had explained to the guys earlier in the morning that we would get only two or three feeding windows at best, and when those feeding periods occur, you had better be where the fish are or your not going to do very well. So far, we were doing pretty good at being in the right spot.

The next several hours we picked up a fish here and a fish there. A few more keepers came on jig/minnow combo's but most of the ones we caught during the middle of the day were small .

Around 3:30pm, things started to pick up again on the blade baits and the bite continued up until about a half hour before darkness set in. A few of these fish at the end of the day also came on jig/minnow combo's. Nothing really fast but just steady enough to keep anyone from losing interest.

The end of the day seemed come fast today. That'll happen when the fish bite.

We ended up catching a total of 25 walleyes and saugers today. Twelve of those were between 15-20" long. None were over 20 inches but Frank did catch one very nice 19-1/2" sauger.

Nice job today guys! You two did a good job picking up the proper technique of jigging with a blade bait. Kevin and Frank, I enjoyed fishing with both of you guys and hope to see you back again sometime.

Boog

Tuesday, Nov 7th

The last day of my 5 day weekend fishing excursion. The last day always seems like it gets here twice as fast as Friday does during a regular work week. What the hell's up with that anyway?

Oh well, still a damn good feeling to be out here in a boat instead of at work.

Dewey Schultz joined me and we had one goal in mind right from the start. We both wanted to catch a limit for the skittle. Catch and release is a very good thing, but once in a while, catch and keep can be even better. The first four days I didn't take home a single fish. That was going to change today!

Dewey and I are both kind of competitive and of course, we both wanted to catch the most and biggest fish. Dewey proved he was no slouch at fall walleye and sauger fishing. All I had to do was put the boat over the fish and he was doing the rest just fine.

I gave Dewey a good blade to use, then grabbed a jigging rod for one hand and a blade in the other.

Didn't take to long though, and I put down the jigging rod to concentrate on the blade. That had a lot to do with the fact that Dewey had taken a two fish lead on me with the blade I gave him.

About that time, the fish kind of petered out on the first spot. The next spot produced fish off and on again for us over the rest of the morning, and for a while, Dewey and I were neck and neck again.

The early afternoon hours were kind of slow and we began to bounce around a bit before Dewey finally connected again on another dandy 19" sauger. I quickly responded with a 13-1/2" walleye. Yea, I know. Kind of wimpy compared to the fish he caught.

This little battle went on for the rest of the afternoon. Dewey did end up with one or two more legal size sauger than I did, but we both had a blast none the less.

All of our fish came from 18-22' of water today. Surface water temperatures are still hanging around 40.5 degrees.

Most of our fish came on blades but the last couple at the end of the day were caught on a jig/minnow combo.

The last day turned out to be the best day of the five. What a great way to end a nice 5 day weekend. If only a guy could get a few more of those each year!

It was great fishing with you again Dewey. You were tough with the old fishing rod today!

Good luck out there everybody!

Monday, Nov 6th

This is the 4th day of my 5 day weekend fishing vacation. Well, it's not exactly a vacation seeing as how I guided on the first three days. But today, I got a chance to go out on my own and check out a few new locations around the lake that I wouldn't normally go to when guiding.

It means I'm probably not going to catch as many fish but it's also the only way I'm ever going to find new spots.

It also means, more than likely anyway, that there won't be any other boats around. Perfect! That's a nice side benefit I can live with.

The first spot took a little over two hours to fish thoroughly enough to convince me that it had some potential anyway. One Sauger over 19" long will do that.

The next spot only took 45 minutes of fishing and sonar watching to convince me that potential was limited as far as late fall walleye and sauger fishing goes.

The 3rd and 4th spots produced another 19" sauger followed by a 17-1/2" walleye.

One thing I'm looking for is sharp drop-offs into deeper water. The deep water has to be at least 23-25 feet deep, and if the water is even deeper, so much the better.

Regardless of wether or not it's a hump or shoreline break, the drop-off into deeper water must be a sharp one. If the drop-off tapers into deeper water too slowly, I don't spend a lot of time fishing it. Drop-offs with stumps, rocks, boulders or fish cribs all increase the potential of any given spot.

Clearly these are not the only areas where you can find walleyes and saugers. They are some of the better ones as far as I'm concerned though and many times, its common to find a spot that holds good numbers of fish very near the areas described above.

The morning passed way to quickly and my solo trip was coming to and end to soon once again. Always does when you get wrapped up in your work.

All three fish were released today. We'll all get a chance to catch them again tomorrow.

Sunday, Nov 5th

Brandon, Fred and I left the pier at 8:15am this morning in search of better size walleyes and saugers than what we were catching yesterday.

Fred and I decided to work blades and Brandon was going to stay with a jig/minnow combo.

For the first couple of hours, we caught nothing at all. It was close to 11:00am before I finally connected on a nice 19-1/2" sauger. The second one came all of 5 minutes later and measured 19" long.

I asked Brandon if he wanted to try a blade, but he decided to stay with the jig a little longer.

10 minutes later and I connected again, this time with a 17" sauger. Now Brandon was ready to switch. I traded rods with him and switched to a different blade on Fred's line also. Then switched the jig over to a blade and got back to fishing. It took a little longer this time, but Brandon finally pulled in a very nice 18-1/2" sauger.

We never did go back to jigs and every half hour or so, we would connect with another nice eaten size walleye or sauger.

We called it a day at 2:00pm. The final tally for a little over 5 hours of fishing was seven walleyes and saugers of which six were between 16-1/2 and 19-1/2" long.

Quite a difference from yesterday.

It was good to fish with you again Fred and Brandon. Hope to see you guys back again next year!

Take care and good luck to all the hard cores out there who refuse to put away the boat until there is ice on the lake!

Boog

Saturday, Nov 4th

Saturday saw warmer temperatures and cloudy skies. Surface water temperatures in the main lake area's of Lake Wisconsin were now running between 40 and 41.5 degrees.

Fred and Brandon Infelise were back for a weekend of late fall walleye and sauger fishing. They fished with me earlier this year at the end of the early fall crappie bite, and now they wanted to try their hand at walleye and sauger fishing.

We left the pier around 8:00am after the guys had an early morning breakfast at Fitz's restaurant in Okee! I usually like to start earlier than that, but when they said they were going to Fitz's first, well, it kind of made me wish I had the time to run over there and join them. Fitz's has good food!

We started out with jigs, but the fish seemed to want blades more than jigs. So we used both, and by the end of the day, it appeared as though the blades had a slight advantage over the jigs. But Brandon in particular didn't do to bad with a jig and minnow.

All fish came out of 18-23' of water.

Overall, we brought 18 different walleyes and saugers in the boat today. I know this for a fact only because I'm particapating in a study for the DNR. And as such, I have to record the length of every single one of them, regardless of how long or short they are. And in today's case, short was the right word for most of them.

Only four of the eighteen were over 15" long.

At least we know there's a pretty good crop of walleyes and saugers coming up for the future.

The guys are going out again tomorrow morning though, so we'll get another crack at the bigger ones then.

Friday, Nov 3rd

Spent a very cold morning fishing with Jim Rhodes and Arthur Harris. We started out at 9:00am due to the frigid overnight temperatures. Even then, you didn't want to leave your hands out of your gloves for any length of time. The wind and cold would pull the warmth out of them no time flat.

Despite the cold weather, the fish were there and we probably should have caught a few more.

I brought the first one to the boat, but nobody wanted to net it and thats where she came off. It looked like a good eaten size walleye, probably around 16-17" long.

Jim's been with me before and does plenty of fishing on his own as well. After a couple of quick pointers, Jim was off and fishing on his own just fine.

This was all new to Arthur though, and the learning curve was pretty evident. But everyone has to start somewhere.

I was explaning to Arthur the proper technique for a jig and minnow, and he was working the rig at the same time when it was evident that he had a bite. "Set the hook" I said! There was a hesitation, so I said it again, "Set the hook, Arthur"! Still a hesitation. Seemed as though Arthur didn't really believe he had a bite. "Arthur, Set the Hook"! And so, Arthur finally set the hook. Guess what? That sauger was still there and he did in fact catch himself a very nice, fat 18" sauger.

Not every fish waited around for us to set the hook properly though, and the end result was a few less fish than what we should have ended up with. The guys still took home four fish between 15 and 18-1/2 inches, which isn't bad for a few hours fishing.

Jim, as always, it was fun fising with you again. Your going to have to bring Arthur back though for another lesson or two. Arthur, it was a pleasure to meet you as well, and I'm glad you were able to catch a legal size sauger on your first late fall walleye fishing trip to Lake Wisconsin.

Sunday, 10-29-06

With two half day trips booked today, I was certainly hoping for better weather than what we had yesterday. Mother Nature smiled on us and even though it was a little chilly in the morning, it turned out to be a really nice fall day. Not to warm and not to windy!

To top it off, the fish bit pretty well. At least in the morning they did.

Kent Scallon and Randy Feiner were in the boat with me this morning. Together, we managed to boat 14 walleyes and saugers. The guys kept six of the eight that were between 15 and 18" long and released two other legal fish.

All the fish this morning came jigging blades in 19-23' of water and they all came before 10:30am.

By the time noon rolled around, I already knew that it was going to be a lot tougher to put fish in the boat during the afternoon hours than it was in the morning.

Brett and Jake King were ready and willing to give it their best shot though.

I gave them both rods rigged with blades, showed them the ropes, and away we went. We jigged and jigged, and jigged some more. When one arm tired, we switch to the other and jigged until that arm was tired too.

We covered quite a bit of area before I finally connected on a nice 17" sauger. I promptly gave that rod and blade to Brett to see if he could hook up with another. Didn't happen!

An hour or so later, I hooked into another 17" sauger. This time I gave my rod and blade to Jake to use. Still nothing good was happening for these two guys. They were doing everything right, the fish just would not respond positively for them.

Another hour passed before I landed a 20" sauger. After that, things got really slow and eventually, I switched to a jig/minnow combo. That produced one more sauger measuring in at 18-1/2" long.

I quickly switched everyone over to jig/minnow combo's but that didn't work either. The only other fish we landed the rest of the day was a couple of 12" long saugers.

So after a good morning, another tough afternoon.

And that's pretty much how October has gone this year. Actually, that's pretty much how Octobers go every year. A good day here and the next day, not so good.

One thing I've always hated about October. The fishing is very unpredictable.

Good luck out there guys!

Boog

Satuday, 10-28-06

Fishing was tough again this morning and the weather was even tougher. Doug Kuiper and I fought the strong winds for most of the morning for one 18" walleye and 3 shorties.

The 18" walleye was released along with all the shorties.

On top of that, my bow mount electric trolling motor started acting up. Nothing like a nice windy day to have trouble with the electric motor.

I also managed to lose a large, camouflaged life jacket as we were running down the lake into the wind. Somehow, it managed to work itself off the chair and disappear into the lake.

If anyone finds it and is feeling generous, I sure would like to have it back!

Surface water temperatures are running around 43 degrees in the main lake.

All our fish came on blade baits in 19-21' of water.

Friday, 10-20-06 and Saturday 10-21-06

Fished mornings only on both Friday and Saturday.

Friday was the better of the two days. Roger Howard, my bowling partner in couples leaque joined me and together we landed 15 walleyes and saugers, most below 15" in length but 5 legals which we kept for a fish fry.

A plain painted jig head tipped with a large fathead minnow took two a few fish but most were caught on blade baits.

Saturday, Jerry Michalski and I only landed two legals and didn't boat near as many overall. The bite was very light and hard to detect.

To top it off, it started raining on us about 9:00am and didn't stop until we left the water around 12:30pm.

At least my new rain gear got another good test. If your looking for a good set of rain gear that can keep you warm and dry in cold rainy weather, you should seriously consider GameHides line of rain gear. I've been wearing my new set for about a month now, and so far, I really love it.

Overall, the fishing is definitely better than it was last week. Still could be better, and I think it will be before we're done this fall.

Good luck out there guys!

Saturday, 10-14-06

Walleye fishing was very slow this past Saturday. We caught several small fish but no legals.

Surface water tempertures have dropped from 61 degrees last weekend to 45 degrees in the main lake.

Boog

Weekend Report, 10-6-06 thru 10-8-06

Well the dog days of early October are upon us once again. Use to be, when I was a kid anyway, that early October weather would start to get pretty cold. Now a days, seems like we have to wait until November before we see cold weather that last for more than a day or two.

Yea, I know the hot summer days of August are the so called "Dog Days of Summer".

To tell you the truth though, fishing for us is more consistent during late July and August than it is in early October.

The fishing was well below average this past weekend. It appears as though both the crappies and walleyes are preparing for the transition to colder temperatures which are surely just around the corner.

Surface water temperatures are still hanging right around that 60 degree mark. Hopefully, the cold weather forecast for this week will push that temperature down another 5 degrees and the lake will flip over. Once that happens, things will definitely be screwed up for a little while, but after about a week or so, fishing will generally pick up for the rest of the open water season.

I fished with Dewey Schultz all day on Friday. Dennis Limmex joined us for part of the day also. Dewey and I spent most of the morning looking for some new crappies spots. Unfortunately, we didn't find any.

We picked up Dennis later in the day and headed off to some of the old spots where we did find a few willing crappies and bluegills. More bluegills than crappies.

On Saturday and Sunday, I fished with Fred Infelise and his son Brandon. They preferred walleyes but crappies were okay with them also. We spent the morning running from one spot to the next and found very few willing walleyes. One legal and several small ones were all we had to show for our efforts.

In the afternoon, we changed directions and spent the rest of the day chasing bluegills and crappies. They ended up with one legal walleye and a half dozen crappies and bluegills.

Sunday morning was pretty much the same story, Not a lot of action and what we did catch, we had to work our tails off for.

Better days ahead guys. Good luck out there!

Boog

Weekend Report, 9-30-06 and 10-01-06

Spent Saturday fishing in the rain at times with Brian Ott and Randy Scott. Overall the weather wasn't to bad. Fairly mild wind and only a few rain showers.

Surface water temperatures are now running 58-59 degrees depending on where you are in the main lake .

We found the crappies and bluegills suspended in the same spot as the week before in 14' of water and used the same techniques as I've been describing in all my past reports for fall crappies.

Sunday was a different story all together. Chris Spierings and I were forced to take our time going anywhere in the early morning hours do to a heavy fog that blanketed Lake Wisconsin. Calm winds were the rule for today and bright sun burnt off the fog by 9:30am.

The fish were in the same spots as yesterday, but getting them to bite was not so easy. We ended up with more bluegills than crappies.

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Boog

Sunday, 9-24-06

Rich Fink had spent a day this spring fishing with me for crappies with his son and daughter. When he booked another trip for fall crappies, I thought maybe he was going to bring them along again. Instead he brought a couple of full time comedians along. This was my first impression of Bob and Mike LePak. In the early morning hours, hardly a minute passed with out one of them cracking a joke or doing an impression.

I soon discovered that they both had another talent. They could both catch fish quite well!

The day did not start out all that well. Both of the local bait shops were closed again when I came through town and this put me in kind of a bad mood. Then when I got to the boat landing, I saw waves rolling into the boat launch and quickly realized the wind was colder and stronger than I thought it would be. I thought with these strong northwest winds, boat control was going to be a real challenge and maybe not even possible.

After stopping in at the Moon Valley bait shop to pick up minnows, we headed to the same spot that had been good to me yesterday morning. But after fishing there for over an hour, we only managed to scrape up one nice crappie along with a few small perch and bass.

This didn't seem to bother the guys from the Bob and Tom show...I mean Bob and Mike. (Sorry, couldn't resist) Their wise cracks and jokes kept right on coming. Apparently, just being out on the lake fishing was good enough for them. What a great attitude to have!

I was actually kind of worried, thinking that getting any fish at all today was going to be a real challenge. My game plan was to hit as many spots as possible and hopefully, we would find some fish in one of them.

The next spot failed to produce anything more than a white bass or two.

The third spot was out in the open where a crib had been sunk near a drop-off years ago that had on a few occasions kicked out some nice crappies for me but hadn't done much of anything so far this year. I don't remember who caught the first one but it was a pretty nice fish.

In the process of netting the fish, the boat was blown off course by the wind. We ended up about 20 yards down wind. I quickly got the boat back under control and moving towards the crib with the bow mount electric motor. That's when the sonar screen lit up with fish. They were stacked one on top of the other in 14' of water all the way up to about 8' below the surface.

Next thing I heard was "fish on" and before I could grab the net, someone else was claiming they had one on too. Both the LePak brothers were pulling in nice crappies when Rich hooked into one also.

A triple!

We landed two of the three and I allowed the boat to drift back and the screen once again lit up. This time I threw and icon up on the GPS and for the next five to six hours, Rich, Bob and Mike used plain minnow rigs fished 10' down right over the side of the boat to catch 27 nice crappies.

It ended up being the best day of the fall for numbers of fish. We didn't get any giants like yesterday, but the average size still ran between 11-13" long.

When the crappies slowed down, I pulled out a 1/64oz jig and plastic combo, tipped it with a waxworm and dropped it overboard. That rig proceeded to catch a few more crappies. It also produced numerous bluegills. We already knew there were bluegills in this school because they had caught several on the minnow rigs. The jig/plastic combo worked much better at catching them and at times, they would hit it as fast as I could get it down. Most of the bluegills were small but several ran in the 8" size range. Nothing special, but still good eating size.

It ended up being a blast. The wind blew, but not strong enough to keep us off the spot for long.

We sat in that spot until the end of the Packer game catching crappies and listening to the game.

Now this is what fall crappie fishing is suppose to be like!

I had a great day fishing with you guys Rich, Bob and Mike! Glad you were able to come along and enjoy one of the best crappie fishing days that I've had in some time.

Good luck fishing out there guys and gals!

Boog

(For those keeping track, average main lake temperatures are now running at about 63 degrees.)

Saturday, 9-23-06

Today I had the pleasure of sharing my boat with Charlie and Billy Hulburt from Rockton, Illinois.

The day started out great with calm winds and comfortable temperatures. Things got even better when we found some very large crappies in the first spot we stopped to fish.

Charlie told his wife he had booked a crappie fishing trip for them on Lake Wisconsin a few weeks back. Shortly after they were reading some of my reports and viewing pictures of crappies that clients had caught on earlier trips. Billy's response was something to the order of..... Sure, like we're going to catch crappies like that!

Actually Billy, the crappies you and Charlie caught were some of the biggest ones caught this fall.

Charlie and Billy took turns pulling up several very big crappies in the 14 to 15" size range using a plain minnow rig fished right over the side of the boat. All of them came from 4-8 feet of water. When there shallow like that, they're usually willing and ready to eat. Just get a minnow in front of them and they'll eat it.

After the early morning spot petered out, things slowed down considerably and we had to work hard the rest of the day to put any more crappies in the boat. We fished a lot of different spots and caught very few fish along the way.

Around noon or so, the nice calm weather we had in the morning disappeared. The wind wasn't all that bad but the rain was steady for the next two to three hours. When it finally let up, we decided to check a few more spots before calling it a day. Good thing we did to because the last two locations kicked out a few bonus fish.

At the end of the day, Charlie and Billy didn't have a big pile of crappies but the 14 they did have were all dandy's!

It was a pleasure to fish with such a nice couple as you two Charlie and Billy! Thanks for letting me be your guide today on Lake Wisconsin and congratulations on some very nice fish.

Take care and good luck fishing!

Boog

Weekend of 9-16-06

The weather was a little bit unsettled this past weekend and the overall numbers of big crappies caught were down a bit.

Surface water temperatures have dropped to around 64 degrees on the lower end of Lake Wisconsin and are just a few degrees cooler on the upper end of the main lake.

On Saturday, Armen Caflisch and his father-in-law Loren came along to try their luck. They had a pretty good outing with me last September and were hoping for a repeat this year.

Strong southerly winds made boat control and casting small jigs plenty challenging and most of our fish ended up coming on the minnow rigs

We never did find any one location that was holding a bunch of big crappies. More like one here and one there. By the end of the morning though, they had enough for a good fish fry.

Sunday I was back on the water with Kevin Reynolds, his father-in-law Roger and Ed, Rogers long time friend of 50 some years.

They have a place on Lake Wisconsin in the Okee area and wanted to learn how to catch the big crappies and bluegills they've been seeing in my reports.

An early morning thunder storm past by just prior to our start and the rest of the morning was actually quite nice. The wind was just starting to get a little strong at the end of our outing but most of the morning it wasn't to bad and the temperatures were very comfortable.

The large crappies bit about the same as the day before but with the lighter winds, we were able to catch them on both the minnow rigs and the 1/64oz jig/plastic combo. The minnow rigs were fished right over the side of the boat and the 1/64oz jigs were cast into the shallows and slowly retrieved back to the boat. The end result was a few more crappies in the boat than the day before.

And in the process, we accomplished our mission. Which was to teach Kevin, Roger and Ed how to catch fish on their own. The techniques are not hard to learn. Getting out there and having some success using these techniques will give a fisherman the confidence needed to go out and do it on there own.

Good luck and good fishing!

Boog

Saturday, 9-9-06

Jim Rhodes and daughter, Jane O'Malley had a pretty good day catching walleyes with me earlier this year on Lake Wisconsin. During the course of their outing, I remember telling them about the good crappie fishing we had in late summer, early fall. That sounded like a lot of fun to them and shortly after, they booked a fishing trip for September crappies. That day was this past Saturday and Jane brought her oldest son Dallas along for the fun.

Dallas is a senior at Stoughton High School where he participates in wrestling. And for those of you who are unaware, Stoughton has a very long history as one of the elite wrestling programs in the state. So if you manage to be a starter on this team, that means your going to get treated with a great deal of respect when you go fishing in my boat. I learned a few years back that it's best to keep these wrestling guys happy!

This was the first really cool, breezy day of the year. Air temperatures only reached into the low 60's and a cold east/northeast wind blew all day long at about 10-15mph dropping the surface water temperatures down to about 71 degrees in the main lake.

The fish didn't seem to mind to much though and Dallas put several nice crappies in the boat at the first spot we fished. The winds did make boat control difficult but not impossible. Normally, I would encourage people to use two rods. But with the windy weather, Jane, Jim and Dallas decided to use just one rod rigged with a minnow.

Removing my foot from the remote control for the bow mount electric trolling motor even for a few seconds would allow the wind to quickly push us away from productive areas. Using two rods in situations like this create's more problems than benefits. Better to stick with one rod on a rough day like this.

Dallas ended catching the most big crappie but everybody got in on the action one way or the other. There were plenty of white bass coming over the side of the boat along with a few bluegills, sheepshead and even a few smallies.

As in the past and despite the chilly weather, I had a great time fishing with the two of you Jim and Jane. I enjoyed fishing with you to Dallas. And I'm especially pleased that you didn't have to wrestle me down and pound and anchor somewhere it doesn't belong!

Just kidding. Good luck this year in the Badger conference and at the State meet in February.

The minnow rigs we use are very simple and consist of a plain thin wire hook running lightly thru both lips of a fathead minnow. Ten inches above the minnow we pinch on a 1/8oz split shot.

We do not cast this out or fish it below slip bobbers. Simply lower it down to the bottom and reel it up one to three turns off the bottom. Let the fish tell you how far off the bottom to fish. If one person is catching fish at two turns off the bottom while the others catch none, then it's time for the other people in the boat to fish two turns off the bottom as well! Be sure to try different depths when moving into new area's.

The boat is used to put the minnows right over the crappies which tend to suspend very close to the first major break out from shore. This is generally right around 10 feet but could also be 8' or 12' in some places. It's not critically important that the break be at one particular depth. What is important is that your minnow be placed at about the same depth as the first major break and that the boat is slowly worked along side that breakline.

Watch your depth finder for brush piles or fish cribs located along or close to this breakline as they are major crappie attractors. They can be a pain in the butt because of all the snags, but in the end, it's worth losing a few rigs if your catching big crappies.

Along the way you can expect to catch tons of white bass. They'll chew thru a bucket of minnows in a hurry to. For this reason alone, it's always worth it to try different jig/plastic combinations to see if the crappies will bite on them as well.

Most of the time I will cast the jig/plastic combo's but not always. If the fish are fairly deep, then another good way to fish a tiny jig/plastic combo is exactly the same way as you would the minnow rig. Simply clamp on a 1/8oz split shot 10" above a 1/64oz jig and drop it right over the side of the boat. I like to tip it with a waxworm before sending it down. You'll catch everything in the lake with this rig. Crappies, bluegills, white bass, smallies, largemouth bass, sheepshead, walleyes and saugers will all take this rig in a heartbeat and my clients do catch them all. You never know what you'll pull up for sure.

There are a ton of plastics out there to choose from and many of them will work very well. Tube jigs are always a good bet and you don't always need a big one. Small tubes will take big crappies weather you tip them with a waxworm, minnow or nothing at all.

Cubby-Mites and Mini-Mites are both tiny jig/plastic combo's that take a bunch of big crappies for us. Nail Tails, Ikes and other straight tailed plastics can work very well also. Tiny Shad by Bass Assassin is another good one and Tiny Worm by Southern Pro is one of my favorites.

Fish them all on a tiny jigs from 1/64oz to 1/16oz on the large end. Some days it pays to vary that a bit by fishing those plastics on a Blakemoore Road Runner jig. The tiny blade on the bottom of these jigs can really pull in the fish on certain days.

When fishing any of the jigs or plastics mentioned above, try not to let it settle on the bottom. Bluegills, sheepshead and other fish will occasionally go down and pick it off the bottom, but crappies won't. Swim the bait along a few feet off the bottom or if your casting into shallower water, allow it to sink just a little at first, then retrieve it at a pace that will allow it to swim parallel to the bottom as it descends down the drop-off and over the first major breakline from shore.

In the case of 1/64oz jigs, you will usually have to stop your retrieve after about two turns of the handle, watch your line and let it hit the bottom a couple of times just so that you can get an idea of how long you need to wait before turning the reel handle a couple of more turns. Stop and wait again for it to sink but this time try to start your retrieve again before the jig hits the bottom. As the lure gets closer to the boat, you will have to wait a little longer for the jig to sink due to the increasing depth of the water. If you keep trying, you'll quickly be able to judge the amount of sink time needed to keep your bait within a few feet of the bottom and not on it.

Most of the time, the bite will be very light but occasionally, they will smash it on the run as they head to deep water. It's fun when that happens, but more often than not, you won't even know their on the end of the line until you start your retrieve again.

The lures, techniques and area's to target as described above are extremely effective for catching big, early fall crappies on Lake Wisconsin, but I'm willing to bet that they will work on almost any similar reservoir in the Midwest.

Big river or small, when the first chilly days of early fall arrive, it's time to start chasing big crappies on a reservoir near you.

If the walleyes start to slow down a little, give big crappies a shot. You'll be glad you did!

Good luck and have fun out there!

Boog

Monday, Sept 4th, Labor Day

Today started off a bit slow. This was due to the weather more than the willingness of the fish to bite.

Ken Deja and I had motored a few miles down the lake and stopped at our first spot where I had just finished pulling out the rods and rigging them up when we both thought we saw lightning. A few seconds later we both heard thunder and saw more lightning. I immediately put the rods away and raced back to the boat landing. Ken and I sat in my truck and talked fishing for the next 45 minutes while waiting for a small thunder storm to move away. Better to be safe and live to fish another day than to take silly chance's when lightning's around!

Ken is a beginner fisherman for the most part and was anxious to soak up as much information on fishing as possible. Sometimes, this can make it easier to teach a person the subtle tricks of the trade.

Many times experienced fisherman develop habits that can be very hard to break. Beginners rarely have these habits and this can at times, allow them to pick up certain techniques faster than more experienced fisherman do.

For example, I can rember trying to get many an older fisherman to stop jigging their crappie lures and instead try to let it swim up and down as they slowly move the rod up and down or back and forth. In several cases, it seemed as though this was almost impossible for them to do and after telling them the proper tecnique for the umpteenth time, I would just give up and let them go about jigging aggressively.

At 8:00am we once again headed down the lake and fortunately, didn't see anymore lightning the rest of the day. Temperatures were comfortable but light rain kept us company most of the morning.

The crappie bite was fairly good today. They didn't exactly jump in the boat but by continuing to work our way up and down the shorelines, we were able to put 10 good crappies in the boat along with some better size smallies. A few the smallies may have measured 15" long. This may not sound all that big to many of you bass fisherman, but we are using 4# test line on ultra lite rod and reels. A 15" bass can put up quite a fight on that kind of tackle!

We also caught the usual mix of white bass, bluegills, sheepshead and some small largemouth bass.

Most of the crappies came from 8-12' of water. Tiny jig an plastic combo's caught a few, but the majority of them came on the minnow rigs today.

Hope you all had a great Labor Day!

Good fall fishing is coming our way. Make sure you get out and get in on some of the action!

Good luck and good fishing.

"Boog"

Saturday, September 2nd

Don Jackson and his two boys joined me for a morning of fishing for bluegills, crappies and whatever else decided to bite.

We slowly worked our way up and down different shorelines while casting tiny jig an plastic combinations into the shallows. Slow retrieve speeds allowed our baits to gently swim along, suspended a foot or two above the bottom and parallel to it's descent into deeper water.

The fish were not biting fast and furious today, but Don, Scott and Joe still managed to catch quite a few fish along the way. Joe had the hot hand for most of the morning, but Don caught the biggest crappie.

Bluegills and white bass made up most of the catch, but a few smallies, largemouth and sheepshead also showed up in the boat.

This group of fisherman had no intentions of keeping any fish and all the fish they did catch were returned into the waters of Lake Wisconsin.

Surface water temperatures in the main lake are still running in the low 70's. As this temperature drops into the 60's, we should see more and more big crappies showing up in their early fall locations. And when they do, some of the best big crappie fishing of the year will take place.

Don, Scott and Joe, It was fun fishing with you guys today. Hope to see you again soon.

Take care out there and as always, good luck fishing!

"Boog"

Friday, September 1st

Clarey Busse agreed to come along on a big crappie scouting mission today. Our goal was to find new areas where I could take clients to catch big early fall crappies.

We didn't find the mother lode by any means but we did catch a whole bunch of fish along the way.

We fought our way thru piles of voracious one year old white bass, a bunch of bluegills and a couple of hungry sheepshead. Along the way, we also caught a few big crappies.

Some spots kicked out good eaten size bluegills and a few locations held some small crappies but we didn't find any new locations that would give up big crappies.

I'm sure there are plenty of spots out there that I haven't found yet. But those spots are going to have wait until another time to be discovered.

If your going to be a fishing guide, then you better be willing to spend plenty of days just like this one. Or in the case of walleyes, plenty of days where you don't catch very many fish at all.

Days where you stay away from the proven areas and set out to find spots that others don't already know all about.

Another words, "Ya gotta do your homework".

On days like this, it actually helps quite a bit to bring someone else along who know's how to fish.

Clarey did a good job of that.

We didn't keep a bunch of fish by any means today but Clarey did get to keep a good meal of panfish for his efforts.

Thanks again for helping me out today Clarey.

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Sunday, August 27th

This morning I had couple of regulars back in the boat fishing with me once again.

Bob Wenger and his son Neal have both been out with me before and this time Neal brought his nephew Tyler Goebel along.

Tyler had heard a lot about the fish his uncle and grandfather had caught on previous trips and was anxious to catch a few of his own. He did quite well too!

Success on the big crappies we were after didn't come easy today though. We tried the hot little spot that had been productive for us on a previous trips, but there were no crappies willing to bite at that location.

So we just kept on casting our jig/plastic combo's tipped with waxworms into every good looking spot we could find while Bob worked a minnow rig on the other side of the boat. Neal, Tyler and I all caught a bunch of bluegills but guess who caught the first big crappie? Bob did!

He had been spending most of the morning weeding through a pile of small white bass. But every once in a while he would real up a real nice size crappie and that got Tyler kind of excited. Eventually, he had to have one of those live bait rigs with a minnow lightly hooked thru the lips.

Unfortunately, all he could catch on that was bunch of small white bass.

Neal continued to pepper the shoreline with a small jig/plastic/waxworm combo and he was having a ball pulling in bluegills of all sizes.

We eventually came to another one of those small spots that was holding some big crappies and Tyler was finally successful, catching several of them on the jig/plastic/waxworm combo.

It ended up being a pretty successful trip by the end of the morning. The weather was nice, the fishing was even better and the company in the boat was excellent. Another fun morning fishing on Lake Wisconsin.

Neal, Bob and Tyler ended up keeping about 12-14 crappies and probably twice that many bluegills. Sounds like a fish fry in the making!

Bob and Neal, Thanks much for letting me take you guys out fishing again. Seems like we always have pretty good luck when you guys come up fishing.

Take care and good fishing!

"Boog"

Saturday, August 26th,

My neighbor Rod Schwegel and his father Bill spent the morning fishing with me this past Saturday. Our target species this morning was big crappies but Rod and Bill were willing to wade thru a bunch of other fish like bluegills, white bass, largemouth, smallies and sheepshead to catch the big crappies.

Rod and his father have caught a lot of crappies in the lakes around their homestead back in northern Minnesota. Rod is now married with three daughters and those lakes in northern Minnesota are just a little to far away. So his wife Christi decided to give him a guided fishing trip for his birthday, enabling him to shorten the learning curve on catching crappies and bluegills in the local waters of Lake Wisconsin.

Man, what a great present!

Fortunately, the stormy weather we had last week came to and end on Friday and we only had to deal with a bit of fog. The sun never really showed itself until after the morning trip was over and temperatures were comfortable enough to allow us to fish in T-shirts.

The early going did not produce to many big crappies and although Bill did hook into a few, they always seemed to come unbuttoned right at the side of the boat before the net man was ready.

We were getting steady action though. Rod was pulling in a bluegill on just about every other cast and the white bass were giving Bill plenty of action on the other side of the boat. In between, they also caught a few largemouth bass, smallies and sheepshead. Not what we were looking for but plenty of business going on at the end of there lines.

Finally we hit into one good spot that was kicking out some dandy crappies and over the next half and hour or so, Rod put several big ones in the boat.

Our lure of choice this morning was a cubby mite jig in chartreuse tipped with a waxworm. Most of the big crappies came out of one small spot but the bluegills were plentiful in just about every spot we checked. We would cast the cubby mite into the shallows and slowly swim it back to the boat. Most of the time, the bait didn't get far before a bluegill smacked it!

By the end of the morning, Bill and Rod had about a dozen crappies and another 15 or so bluegills that they kept for a meal with the family.

The crappie really are just starting to show up and this early fall pattern will only get better over the next several weeks.

It was a lot of fun fishing with you Rod! I'm glad you dad was able to come along. It was fun fishing with him also.

Happy Birthday Rod! Hope you and your daughters are able to get out there and catch a bunch of those bluegills and crappies soon.

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Sunday, August 19nth

Well the long layoff from fishing is over. It actually felt pretty good to get away from it for awhile.

And strangely enough, it also felt really good to put the boat back on the water and feel the cool morning air on my face. Yes indeed, it was great to be back on Lake Wisconsin and going fishing once again!

Nancy and I spent the morning trying to determine if the big crappies had begun moving into their early fall locations. What we found was plenty of bluegills with a few big crappies mixed in. We also caught several sheepshead and a smattering of smallies and largemouth bass. We had a

lot of action overall, just not as many crappies as I would have liked to see.

With surface water temperatures in the main lake still running around 75 degrees, it looks like it's going to take a few more cooler nights and less overall heat during the middle of the day for the crappies to move into their early fall locations in large numbers.

We are still seeing horde's of small minnows in or near the shorelines. Not as many as last month, but I'm pretty sure that there's not going to be to many fish going hungry.

We did not target walleyes at all and probably won't be targeting them for awhile. Crappies will be the focus of my attention for the most part over the next month.

If you like to catch bluegills, then July and August are the months that you want to hit Lake Wisconsin. They are literally everywhere! Most are not real big, just good eaten size with a few big ones mixed in.

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Sorry! There will be no report for the next two weeks as I'm going to be out of town and unavailble until Suday August 13th.

Hope you have good luck if you get out!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Friday, July 21st

Weather wise, my clients Steve Listle, Steve Wright and I enjoyed a perfect day on the water today. The fishing wasn't to bad either. These two guys preferred to catch walleyes and saugers, but were flexible and more than willing to make the switch to panfish if the walleyes didn't go.

If you take a look around the outdoors at this time of the year, you'll notice that the there is no shortage of food for all the wild life. Deer, turkeys, squirrels, rabbits, ducks, geese and most other animals and birds all raise their young at this time of the year for a reason. Food is plentiful!

Guess what? Its just like that under the water in all of our lakes and streams as well.

Knowing this before we set out on the water was crucial. Past experience has taught me that walleyes and saugers can turn off in a hurry on Lake Wisconsin once the middle of summer arrives, so I made sure to bring along the ultra-lite tackle and panfish bait.

We spent the early morning hours trolling crankbaits with no success. Rather than switch over to crawler harnesses, we went straight to the ultral-lites and began casting into the shallows for panfish. It seemed as if the bluegills, crappies, smallies, white bass, sheepshead and even a few largemouth's were just waiting for us there. They began biting immediately.

On the business end of our lines we tied a 1/32 oz jig/plastic tipped with a waxworm. Several different colors were putting fish in the boat. Red, pink, orange and chartreuse all seemed to work just fine. When they were really aggressive, you could catch them without the waxworm.

These two guys were truly having a blast and they could not believe how good the panfishing was in Lake Wisconsin. Many of our cast into the shallows would cause tiny minnows to scatter across the surface when the small jig/plastic combo would hit the water. The amount of baitfish in the water at this time of the year is just incredible. We literally saw a steady stream of tiny baitfish swimming along or just under the surface in most of the spots we were fishing. Many times they would come flying out of the water as white bass or smallies chased them around.

At one point, Steve Wright caught a little smallie and while in the process of removing the jig, it spit out 3 or 4 of these small baitfish. I took this opportunity to examine them up close and they definitely appear to be baby gizzard shad.

It looks like we're in for a 2nd consecutive year of living with and extremely large number of young of the year gizzard shad in the Lake Wisconsin system.

Hopefully, and more than likely, the large number of one year old white bass will do what they do best and eliminate many of them before the end of summer. So if you haven't seen these tiny baitfish already, you will soon.

These little guys are one of the biggest reasons why fish in Lake Wisconsin exhibit such tremendous growth rates. The Wisconsin DNR tells us that walleyes can grow to grow to an amazing 17" long in just 3 to 4 years, saugers to 15" and crappies to 10" long in that same time frame.

So the next time your bemoaning the tough fishing due to all the baitfish, remember to that they are also responsible for the great fishing we enjoy at other times of the year when the baitfish are not so plentiful!

Good fishing out there guys and gals!

Boog

Weekend of July 15nth

I did not fish this weekend. It was the first time I did not put the boat on the water at all for a full week since March.

Thank god I didn't have a booked trip either. With temperatures reaching the upper 90's, not having a booked trip this weekend turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I do want to share a picture with you of a young fellow who caught his first sauger ever last Sunday morning while fishing with his older brother, Nathan, younger cousins, Spencer and Devin Breunig and his Aunt Lucy Breunig. It was a nice, chunky sauger too, measuring up at 17-1/2" long.

Congratulations Jordan!

Stay cool out there guys and gals!

Boog

Friday, 7-7-06

Spent the day fishing with Ron Mannis and Gene Osborne. Ron was the lucky recipient of a half day guided fishing trip which was donated to the Dane County Airport United Way auction last year. Actually, Ron's son married Jo Murphy's daughter and Jo Murphy was the highest bidder for the gift certificate. Jo is not a fisherwoman but thought it would make a nice present so she gave it to Ron Mannis. Lucky guy!

Ron traveled to Wisconsin from Colorado and talked his brother-in-law, Gene Osborne into traveling here from the Twin Cities in Minnesota so that the two of them could spend a couple of days chasing walleyes on Lake Wisconsin. That wasn't very hard to do since these two have spent time fishing together in many different waters across North America. They've shared a boat in the waters of Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Canada to name a few. Today however, was their first time on Lake Wisconsin, and despite the hot weather, it proved to be a pretty good day for fishing.

Between the two of them, they caught 19 walleyes and saugers, 2 smallies, a 31" northern, a 15" muskie, one perch and one crappie. All fish were caught trolling jointed grappler shads and jointed #5 shad raps in blue and perch color patterns.

Not a bad first trip on Lake Wisconsin!

Gene had the hot trolling rod early and definitely caught more keepers walleyes and saugers overall. But Ron had all the bragging rights when it came to size, catching the largest walleye, sauger and northern pike.

It's actually quite unusual to even catch a northern pike on Lake Wisconsin. I have no memory of ever catching one before. You would think that with all the walleye fishing I've done over the past 25 years on Lake Wisconsin, we would have pulled in lots of them. It's actually much more common to catch a musky than it is a northern pike. It was great to not only see one of my clients catch one, but a pretty nice one at that.

Surface water temperatures started out at 78 degrees this morning but ran as high as 82 degrees by mid-afternoon.

Good luck fishing!

Boog

Sunday, 6-25-06

The Keefer family joined me for a morning of trolling for crappies, walleyes and saugers. Nick and Jeff fished with me earlier this year and this time they decided to share the fun with Danette.

We had planned on fishing for a full day, but decided to cut it short at 1:00pm due to bad weather. Danette and Nick both saw lightning, which was followed a few seconds later by some loud thunder. We all immediately decided it had been a pretty good day already and the rest of the fish could wait for another time.

We trolled Ripshads, jointed shad raps and grappler shads again today and the fish liked what we were showing them. Danette caught her first ever legal size walleye, sauger and crappie. Plus she released her first ever slot sized fish. A very nice 20" sauger. Nick had a quick release of a nice keeper size walleye right behind the boat but still landed several real nice crappie and Jeff also caught some nice crappie, plus one that measured a shade under 15" long which he decided to have mounted.

In all, they caught four walleyes/saugers and 13 crappies that averaged between 11-14" long. Not a bad morning for the end of June.

All fish came from water between 10-14' deep. Surface temperatures were a little cooler today, running around 74 degrees.

Jeff and Nick fished with me earlier this year and caught some very nice crappies on that trip. And just like the last time, I enjoyed fishing with this family a great deal.

It's always refreshing to see a family enjoying themselves and their time together catching fish. At the end of a trip like this, I'm left with the realization that this is exactly why I love being a fishing guide. It allows me to have a major impact on the number of smiles on the face's of each person in the boat. And at the end of the day, if there was a lot of smiling going on, the feeling I drive home with is pretty hard to beat.

For that I want to thank the Keefer family.

Thank you very much!

Good luck and good fishing. Hope you all have a great 4th of July!

Boog

Saturday, 6-24-06

Dan Miller shared some of his hard earned Lake Wisconsin walleye, sauger and crappie fishing knowledge with me today. We went out in my boat and spent the day trolling crank baits. He had been tapping into a pretty good crappie and walleye bite and was willing to share his tactics with me.

Dan is not a client, but rather a die-hard walleye fisherman who spends a considerable amount of time fishing in tournaments around the country. He spent time fishing the RCL national walleye trail as a co-angler (now the FLW) but at the present, fishes as a pro on the FLW walleye league trail in Wisconsin.

We've been communicating with each other more and more over the past year or two. It started out as a couple of guys hollering back and forth between boats while fishing, then sending some emails, moving up to actually calling one another on the telephone and finally graduating to sharing a boat together on Saturday.

I had shared some walleye fishing information with Dan earlier this year just prior to a local tournament which he was fishing in. That information didn't really pan out for him. None the less, he was good enough to return the favor, and his crank bait trolling technique worked out quite well.

We went out in my boat and trolled jointed shad raps, rip shads and jointed grappler shads in 10-14' of water. Big crappies that averaged 11-14" long were the most common catch of the day. We caught about 15 of them but also pulled in two walleyes, (16" and 17-1/4") and one hell of a nice looking sauger. (22-1/2" long) I kept 12 crappies and one perch. All the walleyes and saugers were released.

Surface water temperatures have climbed to 76 degrees in the main lake, but it probably won't stay there for long with the cooler weather that is suppose to be rolling in over the next couple of days.

I had a great time fishing with you today Dan. You sure are an easy guy to share a boat with! Thank you very much for sharing your fishing wisdom. It is and will be very much appreciated by both me and many of my clients. I definitely owe you one.

Good luck and good fishing out there guys!

Boog

Sunday, 6-18-06 Fathers Day

Jeremy Williams and his dad Jack joined me on this wet Fathers day morning in hopes of not only catching some walleyes and saugers, but also to learn a few new spots to fish on the lake which they own a cabin on. Hopefully, to learn enough to be able to catch plenty of fish on their own in the future.

So we bounced around from one spot to another while fishing jigs tipped with crawlers in the early hours and crawler rigs and crawler harnesses's later in the morning.

In the early hours, the walleyes seemed to like the jig and crawler quite well. But it didn't last as long as I would have like. We still caught quite a few fish, but only four of them were of legal size.

Plenty of other fish were also interested in the crawlers though. In all, they caught 11 different species. Walleye, sauger, crappie, smallies, whitebass, rock bass, bluegill, perch, channel catfish, flathead catfish and of course the famous Lake Wisconsin coho. (sheepshead)

All fish were again caught in 12-16' of water.

Surface temperatures are running at 76 degrees in the main lake.

It looks like the hot bite we were experiencing on crawler rigs over the past few weeks is finally starting to peter out. That bite is ending a little bit earlier than expected but I guess it makes sense since the hot June bite started two weeks earlier this year.

We probably won't give up on it completely, but we will have to mix in some new techniques to stay on fish. This time of year, that pretty much means crank baits.

Good luck out there guys!

Boog

Saturday, 6-17-06

Fished a full day with Dennis Hayes and Lee Dieter today. In the early morning hours, the fishing looked like it was going to be pretty good. By 11:00am, the two of them had managed to put quite a few fish in the boat, five of them being legal walleyes. But once the afternoon hours arrived, the good luck came to a screeching halt.

In the morning, we ran the crawler rigs that have been doing so well for me the past several weeks on one side of the boat and a regular crawler harness on the other side. This produced fish in several different spots. Not just walleyes either, they caught perch, bluegills, white bass, smallies, largemouth and crappie. Thirty two fish in all by the end of the day.

Unfortunately, no legal walleyes were brought to the boat during the afternoon hours. Lee did have one very nice walleye up to the side of the boat, which I screwed up the net job on. Boy does that sting when you miss a 26" walleye with the net. Sorry about that Lee! I'll be feeling bad about that one for awhile.

All the fish we caught today came out of 12 to 16' of water. Even the bluegills, perch and everything else, they all came from the same areas.

Water temps were running at 73 degrees in the main lake.

Saturday, 6-10-06

Today I enjoyed a fishing trip with my younger brother Gerard and his business associate Bob Sagmoen. Bob is not and unfamiliar face in my boat. This would be his second trip and he was hoping to have a repeat performance of his trip from last year when he caught a very nice 25" walleye. The third person in the boat was my nephew Dan who's been hoping to go walleye fishing with us for awhile now.

Well if yesterday morning was a bit chilly, then this morning was down right cold. Damn, this is June 10nth! It's suppose to be nice and warm by now. Last week we were suffering in 90 degree heat by high noon and today, we're wrapped in rain gear as much to protect us against the cold east/northeast wind as we were trying to stay dry from the light rain hitting us as we made our way out into the main lake.

Surface water temperatures dropped another degree or so last night and are now at about 72 degrees in the main lake. The walleyes and saugers didn't seem to like it much either. Another cold morning and another slow start. Nothing new there I guess.

Well anytime you get several men from one family together in a boat, it's not going to be unusual to hear alot of stupid talk. I guess we took care of that at least. Family is always good for something!

The walleyes and saugers did start to show up little by little as the day wore on. Slower than yesterday, but at least we were catching a few. Dan mentioned that the biggest walleye or sauger he ever caught was only about 24" long and that he sure would like to catch a bigger one. Gerard, Dan and Bob each had at least one keeper fish in the box and another seven or eight smaller ones had been released when we decided to take a break and go eat lunch at Fitz's restaurant up in Okee Bay.

With 15-20mph winds blowing right down the lake out of the east/northeast, the ride up to Fitz's was a little bumpy. If you haven't stop in at Fitz's for lunch on the lake, your missing a real treat! I'll tell you what, you won't leave hungry. Those were the biggest dang turkey sandwich's I've ever tried to eat. Even though I wanted to, I just couldn't quite finish the last couple of bites.

After lunch, we headed back down the lake to try our luck for a little while longer. I didn't really get the feeling that Bob or Gerard really cared much if we fished or just went back to the trucks and took a nap or something. After that lunch, who could blame them. Guess I wasn't ready to give up just yet. Good thing to because Gerard caught an 18" sauger soon after we dropped the crawler rigs down. Kind of looked like a good sign and I thought; Maybe they'll start biting!

Nope, another half hour later and not another walleye or sauger. I had to talked them into trying one more spot before putting the rods away.

We didn't go far in the new spot and Dan hooked into a pretty good fish. He thought it was a sheepshead for sure because it was fighting to hard for a walleye. I got the net ready anyway, just in case. When that fish stuck it's head out of the water, a bunch of people in the boat got real excited. It wasn't a sheepshead, but a very nice, fat, 25 inch long saugeye! I haven't seen a saugeye come in the boat in a long time. It sure was great to see my nephew land his biggest walleye/sauger/saugeye to date.

Congratulations on a nice catch Dan!

On that note, all of us decided we had enough for one day. The cold, wet morning and chilly wind had pretty much wore us out. And after seeing Dan catch that fish, everyone seemed to be going home with a smile on their face. It was a nice way to end a tough day on the water.

Good to see you again Bob!

Take care and hope to see you again soon.

Joel Ballweg

Friday, 6-9-06

Dale and Judy Boetzel joined me for a day of walleye and sauger fishing on Lake Wisconsin today. It was a little chilly at 5:30am this morning and it seemed to effect the mood of the fish in the early morning hours.

The cold air temperatures from the night before dropped the surface water temperature from a high of 76 last week down to 73.5 out in the main lake today. On top of that, we had a chilly east/northeast wind blowing at 10-15mph.

Not the best conditions for walleye fishing in June, but by 9:30am, the bite started to pick up a little. We did not hammer them by any means, more like one here and one there. Just steady enough, that every time someone took their eye off one of the rods, a fish would hit.

A mad scramble would soon occur when Dale or Judy realized they just got bit and sometimes, if they were lucky, the fish was still there.

Our rigs did not change any from the past few weeks. Crawler rigs fished in 12-16' of water. Same program that I've been using for the past two weeks.

Dale and Judy ended up catching 18 walleyes and saugers of which nine were legal. I believe they took home five or six. They also caught five smallies, 1 big white bass and at least a dozen sheepshead. All in all, it ended up being a pretty good day, despite the chilly start.

I had a great time fishing with you Dale and Judy! Take care and hope to see you guys up here again soon.

Boog

Sunday 6-4-06

John, Kevin and Alex Menard had planned on going fishing with me last year. For several reasons though, it never did work out. Sunday, they were finally able to get out and enjoy a day of fishing for walleyes and saugers on Lake Wisconsin. Usually, these guys do their fishing from shore and if they end up catching some nice bluegills, thats considered a pretty good day. They had been anticipating catching walleyes and saugers on this trip for quite some time.

Fortunately, the fishing for walleyes and saugers on Lake Wisconsin continues to be excellent. June is usually the best month of the year and it is certainly going to be hard for any other month to match this Junes hot bite so far.

In all, the Menard clan reeled in 29 walleyes and saugers, fifteen of them were legal size fish between 15-20" long. Night crawler rigs fished in 12-16' of water continues to be the bait of choice.

Surface water temperatures are running as high as 76 degrees in parts of the main lake basin. Pretty warm for this time of year.

Each of these guys caught their largest saugers ever on this trip. Congratulations guys!

John currently holds the record for traveling the farthest of any client just to go fishing with me on Lake Wisconsin. He calls London, England his home. Actually, he traveled here to visit his son Kevin and his family. While here, a fishing trip seemed like a really good idea.

Nice fish John! It was great to fish with you, Kevin and Alex. I was very pleased to be able to share my favorite hobby with a true Englishman.

Take care and good fishing!

Boog

Saturday, 6-3-06

Spent the day fishing with Jim Rhodes and his daughter Jane O'Malley today.

We went with the crawler rigs that worked so well for us last week. The bite was not fast and furious today, but we kept at it and by the end of the day, Jim and Jane ended up with a pretty nice limit of legal walleyes and saugers.

We caught all of them in water between 12 and 16 feet deep.

Surface water temperatures are warming up fast now with all these hot, sunny days. Main lake areas are running as high as 76 degrees in some areas.

Jim and Jane, I had a great time sharing my boat with you two today, hope you guys come back for the crappie bite this fall

Take care and tight lines!

Boog

Memorial Day weekend

Sunday May 28th

Today I had a couple of Bass fisherman joining me. (Boo) Actually, Ted Kawczynski is a walleye guy but his nephews Mike and Frank Farias were bass fisherman.

So I figured I had some work to do. These young fellows needed to be converted over to walleyes while they were still young enough to see the light. Well I don't really know how that's all gonna turn out in the long run, but I did what I could. That's all a guy can do. After that its just fate and the good lord above!

For the third day in a row, the saugers bit pretty darn good on the night crawler rigs we were feeding them.

12-16 feet of water was again our best depth. The weather was even hotter than the previous two days on the water but even that didn't seem to bother these fish. We did have more wind than the previous two days and when the thermometer reaches 90 degrees, a good wind is very much appreciated.

Someone in the boat always ends up with the hot hand. Doesn't matter that all the rods were rigged exactly the same, one rod always ends up catching the most fish. Today, Mike was the lucky one who got hot early and caught the most. Frank caught his share to so the bass guys were doing there share out there. Ted got stuck in a rut and it took awhile break him out of it. He finally landed an 8" perch and later he caught a couple of saugers to break the jinx.

It was a pleasure to meet the three of you. You guys did a good job of picking up the system and taking advantage of some pretty good early summer sauger/walleye fishing.

Take care guys and good luck fishing this summer!

Saturday May 27th

On Saturday, May 27th, Everett Lindsey, Bob Wenger and his son Neal joined me on a quest to catch walleyes and saugers. Expectations were pretty high after seeing the cache of walleye fillets Everett's sons brought home from their outing with me the day before. (see report below)

Since the night crawler rigs had worked so well the day before, we just went straight back to the same program. Everyone was given a rod or two and I proceeded to work the boat over the same spots where we had our best luck the day before.

After an hour or two of no fish and few bites, Everett finally broke the ice and pulled in a nice sauger. Shortly after Bob lost one at the side of the boat. Then it got kind of slow again. I was starting to think we might need to change the program a bit when Everett got a hot hand. It wasn't to long after that when Neal and Bob started to chip in with a couple of nice saugers of there own.

The hot bite ran from about 10:30am to 1:00pm before slowing down. Everett caught one real nice 21-1/2" sauger, a few more ran shorter than 15 inches and the rest all ran between 15-19 inches.

Around 3pm we all thought we heard thunder. I turned on the marine weather radio and after hearing there was a chance of severe thunder storms in Columbia county, we all decided we had enough fun for one day. We had a pretty good day already and no one wanted to be caught on the lake when a storm hit.

Two straight days of hot weather and good fishing. This was turning into one of the better Memorial Day weekends as far as fishing was concerned.

It was nice spending a day on the water with Everett and Bob again. Neal was about one of the most helpful guys I've ever had in the boat. He did just about everything except load my boat on the trailer. All that help is always appreciated Neal! Thanks again for allowing me to share another great Lake Wisconsin fishing trip with the three of you.

I've been blessed with the clientele who have spent time in my boat this year. Salt of the earth people everyone of them! And especially so these last two days with this group of fellows from Mineral Point, Wisconsin.

Thanks again guys and good luck fishing this year on Lake Wisconsin.

Friday May 26th

Last year I spent a day on the water in early October fishing for crappies with Dr. Everett Lindsey, his son Eon and good friend Bob Wenger. On Friday, May 26th, I met and fished with three more of Everett Lindsey's five sons. Matt, Ryan and Luke climb aboard the boat to spend a day chasing walleyes and saugers. Naturally, any time you put three guys from one family in close quarters together, you can pretty much expect to see some competition fire up between them.

Everyone was given a night crawler rig and I used the electric motor to keep the boat over 12-16' of water. Surface water temperatures started out at 66 degrees when we first left the pier but warmed up considerably and managed to reach 73 degrees by mid-afternoon.

Luke got the hot hand early and took full advantage of his chance to let the older guys know it. Matt and Ryan caught their share though and as the hours passed, things kind of evened out. No big fish showed up at the end of their lines but Matt did catch two that ran 18" long. We never had one really good hot spot or even one really good hot time of the day. It was more like one to three fish here and there, and by the end of the day, they all added up to a pretty nice catch.

In the end, they were all pretty happy with the fish they caught and were looking forward to having a big ole fish fry that night. No restaurant fish tonight for these guys! They were planning on washing down fresh caught saugers with a couple of Old Milwaukee's.

Sounds pretty good to me!

Thanks for letting me show you guys around the lake today. It was fun fishing with the three of you. I think I enjoyed it as much as you guys did.

Good luck fishing out there guys!

Saturday May 20 and Sunday May 21st

The weather has been improving and the lake is starting to warm up again. Surface water temperatures have returned to the low 60's over most of the main lake.

Art Horton and Al Miles joined me for a day on the water Saturday. It was quite enjoyable listening to Al in particular spin stories of days gone by. He picked on Art a few times but also got it given back to him a few times as well. It was clear to me that these two guys knew how to have fun in a boat and both of them were pretty good sticks as well. It turned out to be kind of slow day for us but Al had one hot streak where he managed to land three nice saugers running 16.5, 19.75 and 21.5" long.

Since the fishing was tough, we decided it was best to take a spin around the lake so that I could show them as many good fishing locations as possible. It would have been much more comfortable if the wind hadn't been kicking up white caps, but we managaed to cover quite a bit of water just the same.

On Sunday, I took on a short notice trip with most of the Bob and Julianne Weir family who orignally hail from Noth Dakota. Their daugter Rachel and her husband Aaron also came along. The morning started out kind of cold, but it didn't seem to bother anyone to much.

All were pretty much beginners at fishing so I thought it best to keep it simple. We started out with slip bobbers and later in the afternoon, advance to live bait rigs. The crappies were elusive and despite working hard to get them to bite, several ended up getting off at the side of the boat. Kind of disappointing when you had to work so hard to get them to bite in the first place.

The snags however were biting quite well, which is certainly not unusual in Lake Wisconsin.

After we finished fishing, I cleaned up the days catch and we again noticed that some of the crappies still had spawn in them. It appears as though that last severe cold front has had a major affect on the crappies this year. The timing of it could not have been worse. The crappies were all pretty much ready to do there thing in the shallows when it turned much colder than normal, dropping surface water temperatures by 10 degrees or more in the main lake. Worse yet, the cold weather persisted longer than normal.

My guess, is that these crappies will not spawn this year. More than likely, they will not return to the spawning beds and over the course of a few months, there bodies will slowly absorb the eggs.

If your looking for crappies over Memorial Day weekend, check out the stumps located near the mail lake basin in 18-23' of water. Dabble a minow or jig/plastic along the sides of these stumbs or just slowly work the stumps laying on the bottom in these area's. There's lots of crappies out there already.

If it's walleyes your after, I suggest a half a night crawler on a 1/8oz jig. Work it on the bottom in the 12-16' zone of the water column. And if you like to troll, snap on a jointed shad rap in blue or firetiger and work those same depths. Move around alot if your not catching any and don't be afraind to troll shallower water. 6-10 feet of water will hold a lot of fish on some days!

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Boog

Saturday, Sunday and Monday 5-13-06 through 5-15-06

Finally decided to leave the crappies alone and instead spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday on Lake Wisconsin fishing for walleyes. Despite the lousy weather, that turned out to be a pretty good decision. We didn't pound lots of fish, but we did get quality fish.

Surface water temperatures dropped considerably from last week and were running between 52 and 54 degrees in the main lake areas. Rain and shifting winds beat us up pretty good each day. Monday was the best be far weather wise, but it still wore a guy down pretty good by the end of the day.

Dewey Schultz caught his best walleye to date on Saturday using a live bait rig tipped with a night crawler. (25 inches) Nice looking walleye Dewey! We managed nine walleyes on Saturday. Not a large number, but the quality was definitely there. Four of the nine went between 21 and 27" long.

Live bait rigs tipped with crawlers caught a few of the big ones and jig/plastic combo's caught the others. A lindy rig tipped with a minnow also caught some legal walleyes for us, but nothing big.

Leeches on the other hand didn't catch anything at all.

On Sunday, Mike Corson and his son Dillon joined me for a rough day on the water. We had a really tough time of it too. These two were hard core fisherman and would not give up early despite the strong winds and constant rain. Unfortunately, we only managed two legal walleyes and one 13 inch crappie. The fishig gets tough for all of us some days. Guide or not, this was one of those days where I struggled to help my clients put fish in the boat. It's gonna happen sometimes, but I sure don't like it when it does. Sorry guys!

(to help ease the pain, Mike was only charged for a half day. I do that for any customer who has a tough outing)

On Monday, I didn't have to worry very long about weather or not the fish were going to bite or not. Dick Majcher's first fish was a beautiful 26.5" walleye. His buddy Rob had a bit of a tough time though, catching mostly sheephead before finally pulling in a 14.5" sauger.

We also caught two other legals and two more in the slot that went 26 and 26.25" long.

Here is the nice 26 incher that I caught on a jig/plastic combo.

Over the three days of Saturday, Sunday and Monday, my clients and I ended up with seven walleyes between 21 and 27" long.

Throw out Sunday, and it looks pretty good!

Good luck and good fishing guys and gals!

Weekend of 5-6-06, Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday

Crappie fishing report

Spent Friday afternoon fishing with my wife Nancy and her older brother Bill Bahnfleth. Due to some cold temperatures, the crappies were still staging just off the first drop-off adjacent to the spawning areas. We caught them by dropping our minnow rigs right over the side of the boat, letting them hit bottom, then cranking the reel from 2 to 4 turns off the bottom.

Bill got the hot hand and ended up pulling in more than both Nancy and I together. By 6:30pm, we all had enough of the cold weather and the 14 crappies in the live well were more than enough for us. Since Bill only gets to go out fishing with us about once every other year or so, I cleaned them up and sent them all home with him. It's always great to see you Bill! Looks like you have the bragging rights for now, but I'll get ya next time!

On Saturday, I was able to share my boat with Richard, Nicole and Andy Fink. They came from the Hustiford area and were very much interested in catching some nice Lake Wisconsin crappies.

After a hard frost on Friday night though, these fish were shut off big time and Saturday morning was very slow. Fortunately, things warmed up considerably by early afternoon and the crappies began to move up into the shallow waters where they found a minnow dangled a foot or two below a bobber to their liking. Unfortunately, we had to call it a day by 3:00 in the afternoon, which pretty much coincided with the best bite of the day. Still, the three of them managed to put 18 very nice crappies into the cooler and almost all were caught between 2:00 and 3:00pm.

Glad you guys stuck it out through the tough morning bite. It really paid off in the early afternoon.

I enjoyed fishing with the three of you. Hope you come again some time soon!

Sunday, May 7nth I met Jeff Keefer, his son Nick and their friend Dale at the Moon Valley boat launch early in the morning. From there, we headed to the same area where we left the crappies the day before. Jeff got his line in the water first and I think he dang near had a crappie in the boat before the other two managed to get a minnow out of the bucket. Guess he wanted to get a jump start on these other two guys.

There were only a few fish left on the spawning grounds from the day before though, and it was a pretty slow day over all for crappies.

Smallmouth bass however, were more than willing to take up the charge and by the end of the day, 11 crappies, approximately 12-13 bass and two sheapshead did their best to keep these three busy. We caught fish in every spot we tried but never more than a few in any particular location.

It was fun fishing with these three guys and it was great to to see Nick catch his first crappie and his first walleye ever. The walleye measured 15" right on the head and we all decided that it was best to let it go. We figured that a game warden might not get the same measurement that we did so there was no sense taking a chance. Wish I would have known it was Nick's first walleye though, a picture for him before releasing it would have been nice. Sorry about that Nick! You'll catch a bigger one next time and we'll make sure to get a picture of it!

Surface water temperatures were running about 59 degrees in the main lake basin and as high as 65 degrees in the bays during the hottest part of the day on Sunday.

Finally, it looks to me like the crappie run is pretty much over with. There will probably still be a few schools of them spawning here and there over the next week, but the majority of them appear to have finished up their business in the shallows for this spring.

Just the same, good luck if you go!

Boog

4-29-06 Saturday on Lake Wisconsin

Crappie fishing report

It sure felt good to get back out on Lake Wisconsin after being gone from my favorite lake for more than a month.

Crappies, crappies and more crappies. That's what I was hoping for after talking to several different sources. Friday afternoon is when I actually started fishing. My plan, which was working great so far, was to hit as many different crappie spawning areas as possible. Since I was gone for so long, I wanted to get a fix on as many different good crappie locations as possible.

My first stop produced a nice 13" crappie on the first cast and the 2nd cast wasn't in the water for more than 30 seconds before another big crappie took down the bobber.

On to the next spot I went. This process went on for the next two hours. Some spots held crappies, and others didn't.

Meanwhile, I hardly noticed that the weather was changing drastically around me. Clouds building, winds picking up from the east and the temperature dropping. The temperature dropping was what finally woke me up! It was getting cold fishing in just a T-shirt and that had me digging in the boat lockers for a warm coat.

This was bad news! Instead of staying in the warm, shallow areas, these crappies were sure to start pulling back the instant they felt these shallow waters start to cool off. And sure enough, thats exactly what happened.

After seeing the weather report for Saturday and Sunday, I knew right away that the crappies would be pulling back to deeper, more temperature stable waters. They can still be caught, but the action was probably not going to be fast and furious.

When Dewey Schultz and I started out bright and early on Saturday morning, the winds were already blowing from the east at 10-20mph and rain was expected by early afternoon. We started by tossing a minnow rigged a few feet below bobbers into the shallows in hopes of finding a few holdovers from the day before. This produced one or two fish. I knew we would have to go deeper to find more crappies.

So we pulled back to the nearest 12-16' deep areas available. Here we set our lines right over the side of the boat. Some were set to run a few feet off the bottom and others about half way down. We proceeded to drift over these deeper areas where the lowrance X-19c full color sonar showed lots of fish in some areas and only a few in others.

Little by little, we started to pick up a fish here and a fish there. Nothing fast but the crappies we caught were very nice fish. Average size was running between 11 and 14" long.

By the end of the day, we had managed to catch 15 very nice crappies. We also lost a few more because because of lethargic reactions by the net man. (more like non-reactive) That changed quickly after we lost our second really big crappie right at the side of the boat and Dewey proclaimed that since the fish were not coming fast and furious, from now on, the other guy in the boat was responsible for quickly getting a net under these fish. And since I've already had my once in a lifetime experience with and ex-UW Wisconsin wrestler, there was no way I was going to have another.

Surface water temperatures in the main lake areas were running in the upper 50's and the bays had areas as high as 61 degrees. The weatherman is predicting rain all week and that means these big crappies will probably stage in the deeper water until the next warm up occurs. At that point, they are going to bite like gang busters. Because the spawn was already under way before this cold front hit, it will probably be over with fast. Two weeks at best, probably less, and this years crappie spawn on Lake Wisconsin will be behind us!

Good luck and good fishing!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Door County Brown Trout Trip 4-17-06 thru 4-23-06

Another annual Door County brown trout trip has come and gone and already I can hardly wait for next years trip.

Last years trip was wrought with bad weather and missed opportunities. We had found some nice fish last year but due to the inability to get out in 35mph winds, we never got the chance to exploit them during the tournament. This year, the weather was much nicer to us and by Friday, we were able to put together a pattern that was putting fish in the boat.

I spent 6-1/2 days in Door County this year fishing the waters of Lake Michigan for brown trout. Larry Pakyz joined me on Tuesday afternoon and was able to spend 5 days in the boat and Dick Straub joined the two of us Wednesday evening, which allowed him to prefish with us on Thursday before fishing with us for the entire 2-1/2 day Bailey's Harbor Brown Trout Tournament.

The first couple of days we had bright, sunny skies with east winds between 5-15 mph. Not really ideal conditions but at least we had some wind. The fishing on those first couple of days was poor and we struggled to put anything in the boat at all. We spent time on Eagle Harbor in Ephraim on the Green Bay side of the peninsula and Moonlight Bay, North Bay and Rowley's Bay, all on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula. All we had to show for our efforts over the first three days of fishing was two pike, and two brown trout. And unfortunately for Larry, all of those fish came before he arrived!

Little did Larry know at the time, but his luck was about to improve dramatically! On Thursday, we headed down from our headquarters in Bailey's Harbor to fish the Sturgeon Bay shipping canal. With Dick joining us in the boat, we would be allowed an additional three lines to troll with.

We ran 8 lines most of the time the rest of the week while trolling the Green Bay side from Sturgeon Bay all the way up to Eagle Harbor in Ephraim. We ran F7's, F9's, and F11's in black, gold, blue, chartreuse and orange from 100-120' behind Off Shore planer boards while trolling in water depths of 8 to 25' deep.

We found active, hungry trout around 9:30am, and they didn't stop biting for long the rest of the day. We had a blast catching one after another, and missing a few along the way didn't seem to hurt as much today. A total of 11 ranging in size from about 17" to 27" long were netted. One of our best days ever fishing for brown trout. And to top it off, we popped a couple of smallies along the way.

Now, we were all wondering if we could do it again tomorrow on the first day of the tournament.

On Friday morning things got started off bright and early with the browns picking up right where they left off the day before. Same program, same results! By the end of Friday, we had caught 13 more browns. The average size was better overall, but our top three fish from Thursday were all bigger than the biggest we caught today. Dang! Seems like every year, we always catch the biggest ones before the tournament starts.

By weeks end, we had landed a total of 27 brown trout, 5 smallies, (all between 16-18" long) and two pike.

A total of 220 entrants paid their way into the Bailey's Harbor Brown Trout tournament and it paid out to the top 60 places. We took home 39nth, 40th and 59nth place to basically win our money back.

Most importantly though, we all had a blast catching fish and this summer, we will be able to share the grilled and smoked brown trout with family and friends alike.

I can hardly wait until next year!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

4-8 and 4-9-06

Busy, busy weekend again. None of which involved actually getting on the water and doing some fishin.

Next weekend, I'll be pulling the boat to Lake Michigan for a week of trolling shore lines along Door county for Brown Trout. A side trip or two for pike or walleye in the Sturgeon Bay shipping canal may be in order also. Joining me later in the week will be Larry Pakyz and Dick Straub. The last few days of the week we will be fishing in the annual Bailey's Harbor Brown Trout Tournament where we've done quite well overall in the past.

Because I'll be in Door county over the next two weekends, there will be no local fishing report. But if your looking for some active fish on Lake Wisconsin, your best bet would be to check out the shallow back bays for bluegills. This time of year, the shallow, mucky bottom back bays will warm up much faster than the rest of the lake which in turn, will draw in active buegills. Warm, sunny days without to much wind are the best.

If your target is walleyes and saugers, then your going to want to check out the area around Okee.

A real good post spawn bite has occured several times right around the 3rd weekend in April. It usually only last a week or so at best. Walleye spawning should pretty much be completed by the end of this week.

If your looking for crappies, check out some of the deeper water out and away from locations where they will spawn next month.

Another good bet this time of year is Crystal Lake. Excellent panfish lake and a good bite always occurs in April.

Next report will not be posted until April 24th.

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Boog

4-1-16 Saturday at Wisconsin Dells

Spent Saturday fishing in the Dells. Was trying to target larger than average walleyes and didn't expect to catch many if any at all. I did expect to at least catch a few keepers along the way, which is what usually happens. Not today!

Fishing was very slow. Small walleyes and a couple of hungry High Fin Suckers was all that I could pull into the boat today.

Surface water temperatures are now running at 42.5 degrees in the dells.

Did not fish on Sunday. Had to make time to work on the boat and other fishing equipment. Ice fishing gear also needed to be stored away for the summer.

Good luck if you go!

Boog

3-25 and 3-26-06 at Wisconsin Dells on the Wisconsin River

On Saturday, I invited Mark Pings (aka "Buck") along for a scouting trip below the Dells dam. We were looking for some bigger than average walleyes and I needed somebody who could hold his own casting light weight jig/plastic combos. Well, Buck proved to be a good pick. More on that in a bit.

Surface water temperatures started out at 37 degrees in the early morning hours and warmed up to 38.5 by late afternoon on Saturday. By late Sunday afternoon, they had warmed up to 40 degrees. Water levels were steady on Saturday but rose slightly overnight.

The weather on the other hand was not all that warm on Saturday. A chilly wind and cloudy skies made sure we kept all of our heavy outer wear on all day long and temperatures never rose much above 40 for the day.

The first fish in the boat this morning was a 22" northern pike. It was a nice, short fight, but not what we were looking for. My plan was starting out kind of slow. We were pitching jigs tipped with plastics to lots of good looking areas, but we were not getting bit. I finally hooked into another fish around 10:30am. Buck netted it for me and we had a nice looking 18-3/4" walleye in the boat. Although it was no monster, it was more like what we were actually looking for.

I gave Buck this spring's hottest jig/plastic combo . And over the next several hours, I proceeded to try just about every other color combination of jig and plastic that I thought might have even a slight chance of working. None did!

Meanwhile, Buck proceeded to catch 3 more nice walleyes. No monsters but all of them between 17 and 19-3/4" long. No two fish came from one spot and they all came an hour or so apart from each other.

The shallowest water we caught a fish from was about 6' and the deepest was 14 feet. Most of the spots had steady current running over them. No fish were caught from slack water areas.

On Sunday, Kevin Key came along and we hit the same spots with our best jigs and then some. Nothing doing today! I suppose it was just too darn nice out. There certainly was no shortage of people on the river today. Personally, I'll take the cold, cloudy weather and a few less boats on the water than the bright, sunny, windless day we had on Sunday.

Finally, by early afternoon, I caved in and we headed to some of the regular hotspots that are always good for a few keeper saugers. You may have to sort thru some smaller fish, but a guy can usually pull a few legals out of the bunch and by the end of the afternoon, two of them did indeed measure over 15" long.

We didn't boat high numbers of fish this weekend by any means. But I wanted to get away from the same old, same ole and try some new things. That's why I had Buck pitching my top bait while I threw a whole bunch of other stuff in the hopes of finding a new hot bait. It didn't really work out the way I would have liked. Still, these are the kinds of things a fisherman has to force themselves to do from time to time. Otherwise, it's just too easy to fall back to using the same old rigs in the

same holes time after time and year after year. And when you go out and do the same thing every time, well....you're not really learning much any more!

Good luck out there guys and gals!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

3-18-06 Weekend Fishing Report for Lake Wisconsin Headwaters.

Once we got through the cold early morning temperatures, the weather this weekend was actually quite nice. Not very much wind on either day and plenty of sun. Air temps climbed as high as 40 degrees on Sunday and due to the calm winds, it actually felt even warmer.

Water temps actually dropped about 5 degrees from the previous weekend and that will usually slow things down some. Last weekend we had surface water temperatures that reached as high as 42 degrees, this weekend they started out at 37 degrees in the morning and by Sunday afternoon managed to finally climb back up to 40 degrees.

The fish were still there though. They were less active than last weekend, but on Saturday at least, Louis Siller was able to catch his limit. We caught them by slowly pulling twister tails upstream behind stick sinkers. Louis caught all five of his fish between 1 and 4pm. We also caught a sixth sauger that was a bit under 15", which I mention because it was only the second short fish we've caught the last two weekends.

On Sunday however, it seems we were determined to catch them in the same location and that may very well have been our down fall.

Larry Pakyz and Bill Alt joined me on the water today and we all really enjoyed being able to fish in such nice spring weather, but we only pulled one legal walleye between the three of us. Several others hit our jigs, but none of them felt the hook. Two of them did come close to pulling the plastic right off my jig though.

I think part of the problem is that when a couple of old timers like these two get in my boat, a few to many stories get spun and the next thing ya know, your not really concentrating on fishing as hard as you should be. Instead you just end up eating donuts and muffins while listening to dentist jokes that should have been retired when the dentist did.

Just kidding guys! Even if the fish don't bite, I know there won't be any dull moments on the water with you two the boat.

Good luck out there guys!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Sunday, March 12th

What a difference a day makes. The nice 59 degree weather of yesterday was gone and the early morning hours on the headwaters of Lake Wisconsin near Tiperrary found me sharing my boat with long time card playing buddies Mark "Buck" Pings and Wayne Henn.

Early morning saw us attempting to vertical jig while bracing up to a stiff, cold north wind. Gusts of wind blowing across the bow were making boat control difficult. More so than normal since my Minn Kota bow mount trolling motor was unwilling to take a left turn. I finally got tired of messing with it and decided to back troll with the T8 Yamaha instead.

Despite early difficulties with the wind, we found the fish more receptive to our offerings today. Yesterday, Dewey Shultz and I figured out what the best depths were and what baits they wanted. Today, with the help of novice walleye angler Wayne Henn, we discovered the correct jigging motion to activate a positive response from the fish below. By 10:30 this morning, we already had 5 nice saugers in the boat and Wayne had just caught a nice 20-1/4" walleye which we released after taking this photo.

Normally, you would think two guys with as much vertical jigging experience as myself and Buck would be giving lessens to someone like Wayne. But not today! Wayne was out-fishing us so bad, that we were both watching every move he made with the jigging rod and repeating the cadence as close as possible. For one day at least, Wayne was the walleye king on this part of the lake.

Next week, my guess is that jigging cadence will probably change and we'll have to start over again, trying to figure it out. I might have to bring Wayne along.

Aside from the correct jigging cadence, another major difference from yesterday was the lack of fish caught on a minnow rig of any kind. We caught a total of 18 fish and the jig/minnow combo's didn't catch any of them. All were caught on a jig/twister tail combo.

Wayne not only caught his biggest walleye today, but also had his best walleye/sauger fishing trip ever.

A few other interesting facts from the last two days of fishing:

Of the 24 total fish we caught, only one was a walleye. (20.25" long)

Every fish was bigger than 15" long. Twenty four fish caught and all of them were between 15 and 20-1/4" long. No shorties!

This bite could last for another two weeks or the best fishing could be over in the next several days. Its a crapshoot this time of year on the head waters of Lake Wisconsin and the only way to know if there biting, is to go fishing and find out.

Good luck to all of you out there chasing early spring walleyes or saugers!

Boog

Saturday March 11nth

Boy, what a difference a week makes! Last week I was fishing below the Wisconsin Dells dam in a snow storm and this week the temperature reached 59 degrees on Saturday while Dwayne Shultz and I fished the head waters of Lake Wisconsin. The wind blowing from the southeast was a bit stronger than I would have liked, but all in all, it was a pretty nice day and surface water temps warmed up to the low 40's by late afternoon.

Dewey and I found the early going a little tough.

The first three spots we stopped and checked out didn't produce any walleyes or saugers. Finally, sometime around 10:30am, Dewey set the hook and proceeded to bring a nice 17-1/2" sauger to the boat. It hit a jig/minnow combo. Shortly after, I caught a nice 17" sauger which hit a jig/twister tail combo. Then, everything went dead for an hour or so until the next two fish came back to back just like the first two. Both were 17-18" long.

A fish here and a fish there later in the afternoon was all we could muster. Between the two of us, we maybe had 10 bites of which we caught six. The good news, they were all between 17-18" long. No shorties!

18-22' of water was the best depth for us today but one was caught in 15' and another was caught out of 12' of water.

Verically jigging plain painted jig/minnow combo's and jig/twister tail combos caught all our fish. We did run some 3-way rigs. The jig on the bottom caught some fish but the trailer line never caught a single fish. We ran floaters and plain single hooks on the trailer line, both tipped with large fathead minnows.

Always good fishing with you Dewey!

Hope we can do it again soon.

Good luck out there guys,

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Sunday, March 5th at Wisconsin Dells

What kind of walleye fanatic would I be if let a little snow storm stop a me from going walleye fishing?

"Well", considering how fast it came down, it might have been a better idea if I had just stayed home. When we get three inches of snow in 3 hours time, it tends to make fishing a very cold and wet affair. The part of me that gets cold in these conditions is my hands. And when both pair of heavy duty cloves get wet, then I know its time to go home.

Despite the heavy snow, I did catch a few walleyes. Nine to be exact, only one was over 15" long.

I actually didn't even intend to go. After all, I did watch the weather report and was fully aware of the forecast. But after reading the Sunday morning paper and slugging down a cup of coffee, I started to get that urge really bad. The urge that doesn't really care what the weather is outside because I just have to get out there and do some fishing.

So, after checking the weather radar and the river cam of Rivers Edge resort for the 5th time, I started calling around to see who was crazy enough to go with me. No one was!

Didn't matter, I hooked up the boat and started off for the Dells. Of course by the time I got there, it was snowing heavily. Funny, it wasn't snowing at all when I was looking at the river thru the Rivers Edge "river cam".

Well to make a long story short, after fishing for 3 hours and accumulating about 3 inches of snow in the boat, it suddenly seemed like a good idea to go home. After all, both pair of heavy fishing cloves were now wet. Must be time to go home!

I would have liked to get out on Saturday instead, but had already made a commitment to get a few more things done around the house. I did manage to sneak in a short break and check out Ron Barefield speak at Ace Sauk Prairie's annual "Spring Fishing Clinic". He was worth seeing too. It's always nice to pick up a few new piece's of the puzzle.

Good luck fishing guys!

Joel "Boog" Ballweg

Dells trip, March 1st, 2006

The first trip of the year is officially under the belt. Larry Pakyz and I spent approximately 7 hours fishing the river below the Dells dam today. (8am – 3pm)

Typically, when the fishing is tough, I usually find that going simple is better. That was true again today. So, after spending and hour or so fishing in unproductive areas while using nonproductive lures, (hair jigs/plastic) we finally started to figure out a few pieces of today's puzzle.

We found a few small but willing walleyes in 20 to 27’ of water. Due to the very cold water temperatures, we used a very slow jigging action. (34 degrees) We were able to entice them into biting with bare 3/8oz jigs tipped with large fatheads. Many would not have been caught if not for the addition of a stinger hook. A simple live bait rig setup also caught a few fish for us.

Although a few gust of wind made it difficult, we were able to control our drift speed with the bow mount electric motor.

Between 9:30 and 10:30 we were able to catch only small walleyes in the 9 to 11” range. Moving the boat away from these areas and into nearby waters with similar depth was the final adjustment that made the difference. Over the next 1-1/2 hrs using the same rigs, we were able to catch two legal saugers, (16-1/2” & 17”) and one 16” walleye.

By early afternoon, the fish had pretty much shut down and we decided to pull a few stick baits around to see if we could tease a few into biting that way. Didn’t work!

We ended the day with a total of 15 walleyes and saugers of which three were legal. Not great, but not bad either. And when you consider that we’ve been locked up inside for most of the winter, thinking about all the different methods we’re planning on using to catch a slew of walleyes this year, well, a guys gotta start somewhere!

Joel “Boog” Ballweg