Big McKenzie WI

Booked a long weekend next summer to go to the Spooner rodeo with my parents (they plan a week long pan/pike fishing trip around it every year). We are staying at a vrbo on a different lake from them, very small lake that it wouldn’t be worth toting the boat along just for it. I am planning to bring it though as I want to go out a day on Spooner lake to show my son the lake we grew up vacationing on and we are also not far from Big McKenzie, we stayed on middle McKenzie a couple years but only pan fished. Anyone know how the walleye are on McKenzie? Mid July would it be worth a day to take a swing at it or better off sticking to panfish to keep the family entertained?

Sisters got a place on Big McKenzie. Very clear water nowadays. Not sure how it used to be. All my walleyes have been caught at dusk or dark. Mid July is going to make it even tougher. The lake is overun with bass now (and pike), so may want to focus on that if trying to keep the family entertained. The lake has an absolute load of structure that looks prime for walleyes it just never produced like I thought it would. For what it’s worth, the walleyes I’ve caught have almost always been on the cabbage weed lines and almost nothing in the rocks

I’ve ice fished Big McKenzie for walleyes and caught some decent fish on the north side of West Point. Also fished it for muskies in the fall. My buddy did really well for them, me not so much. It had a tough weedline to follow.

Weedlines are your friend.

Clear water and offshore structure in the abyss are death sentences for forage…hence walleyes won’t stick around either. These lakes fish nothing like the Canadian shield lakes with their stained waters.