Sherman Crappie and Walleye Report

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were some of the most beautiful days that you have ever seen in your life but here in Nebraska the windless weather can only last so long as Saturday and Sunday’s wind definitely made up for the lack of it during the week. Even with the strong winds this weekend, I was able to make it up to Sherman a couple of times with a couple of people whom I had never fished with before and we had a blast.

Saturday was the Rose Placzek Memorial Crappie Tournament up at Sherman and I had the opportunity to fish with Jeff Gannon. Usually this time of year the fishing for crappie is phenomenal and easy to do at Sherman. Like clockwork, the crappie are up in the shallow water spawning during the 1st and 2nd weeks of May, not the case this year. Jeff and I found that the crappie were scattered with some still hanging around the shallow spawning grounds and some transitioning to the deeper water. The wind made fishing deep very difficult and after fishing in the shallows all morning and not having a single fish in the boat by 11:30, we were about ready to give up and try our hand at some walleye fishing. Jeff said that he had heard of some people having luck earlier in the week off of a certain dock so we decided to try this one more place. We were only up in there for a couple of minutes when we hooked up with our first crappie of the day and the action was constant for the next hour. Most of the fish that we caught were off of 1/16th oz feather jigs and were right around the 10” mark with a few going under and a couple around 12”. By the time that weight-in came around we boated about 10 keepers and our 5 best weighted about 3.25lbs.

After the crappie tourney, Jeff and I headed out to try our luck at some walleye before we went home and the bite hadn’t changed a bit from the weekend before. We went back up into Trail 8 and fished water from 6 – 12’ and pulled both leeches and crawlers on lindy rigs. The action was fast and furious for the hour and a half that we got to fish and though most of the eyes were short, we did manage to land one nice 18 ½” keeper. With the strong winds on Saturday, there was an extremely distinct mud-line that we were able to work and the fish were using it just like they are supposed to.

I thought that the wind was tough to deal with on Saturday but it was nothing compared to the way that it roared on Sunday. I had the opportunity to fish with one of my sponsors, Matt Pawloski and his dad for the morning. I was really hoping to get some nice weather for the guys as they don’t get to walleye fish much but Mother Nature had different plans I guess. We got out on the water and made our way up in Trail #8 and found that the wind was blowing a little less than out on the main water but still rolling pretty good. I set the electric down in the water and pulled our lindy rigs into the wind and though it was quite the job to keep the bow into the wind and keep us crawling along we were able to get onto a good number of eyes. One thing that I was not excited to see at all was the number of drum that had moved up into the area. When we could keep our bait away from the drum, we could catch walleye. I suppose we ended up boating about 15 or so eyes in the couple of hours that we were on the water but when I couldn’t keep the electric in the water anymore I knew it was time to head for dry land. The bite should stay good up there for some time now so make sure you put Sherman on the “to-do” list.