Wow, what a difference a few nights can make. But with the recent cool down, we have finally seen some fish school up and boy are they hungry. This last week, I was on Winnie and it went from pockets of fish to large schools by the weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, I had the opportunity to Fish with Kathy and Mel Urlacher and Rob Brandwick. Interesting enough Mel is cousins of the Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears, we talked very little about football. We hit the walleyes, perch and Northerns on Saturday, and then it was off to the crappies on Sunday, Both days we had great success. Here is one of the slot fish that was caught on Saturday, by Kathy as Rob was realing in another, it was on my pole, yet she was watching it, so she got all the credit, as I had the net for Rob, thanks Kathy.
As for Saturday, the fishing started a bit slow, but it was the first frost of the year and with the temps holding around 30 degrees and slowly hitting 40 by the time we hit the water, they just needed a slight warm up before it was time to feed. The East shoreline is where we fished most of the day. From the Birches landing down into musky bay, it seemed that every inch of water was full of those ever-so fisty walleyes. The majority of the fish were hanging on the first primary break of 4-5 foot, but as the afternoon moved on, we found good number in that 3-4 foot of water.
With the cool down over night, the fish being a bit less aggressive early, we had to use a much more subtle jigging style, in fact the drag method was working for a while, but as soon as they starting getting aggressive, they again wanted those fireball jigs ripped, the harded we jigged, the more and harder they bite. The Northerns and nice perch were mixed in with the walleyes, so it was an action bite to say the least.
Then after a day of fishing walleyes, having limited out we had to change up the pace and fish for those slabs, both crappies and gills. The crappies came easy. This presentation was mainly fishing a deep water hole in Cutfoot. We tied on 1/16 oz pink fireball jigs with small crappie minnows and fished them vertically, key was to hoover over them and get the bait to the bottom as quick as possible. The crappies really seemed to like Mel and I, but Kathy and Rob, caught they share by the days end. Most of the crappies on Cutfoot have made the move to the wintering or fall stageing water, making for some fantastic fishing. Well as most of you probably know, panfish tend to hold to small areas, well this would hold true as we tried for some gills. As we pulled into little Cutfoot, someone was anchored in the spot and for the most part all’s we could do is watch, but they pulled numbers of 10-12 in gills, with us only finding 4-5 of them. All in all Winnie is game on and the fireball frenzy has started.
Great report! I am getting excited! Heading up there from this Sat. till Wed. Normally, this time of year, I don’t have much trouble finding the “eyes” on the big lake. But it sure would be fun to get into those Crappies. I am taking my Uncle up there, and if it is windy, he has a hard time on Winnie. It would be nice to hit a couple of different kinds of fish if the wind is blowing hard, since we will be staying on Cutfoot.
Also thanks for the info on Pokey 2 weeks ago. It was very helpful since none of us had been on that water before. And yup, the Chappy’s were with me!!
I will be on Winnie starting tomorrow thru Monday. Tamarack point should be great along with just outside the marker bouy’s near the gap. Hopefully the weather holds out, this weekend should be another great one. Look for deep holes near the shoreline in Cutfoot for those crappies, or one can normally find some in Little Cutfoot.