fishing report

[bearriver]

Just thought I would drop a line and let you FMer's in on my fishing report. I was on the cook end of the lake on Sunday doing some walleye fishing and they are still deep! catching alot of 10-12 inch in about 35 to 40 feet of water. with an early morning start, my buddy and I got about 20 walleye in about 3 hours of fishing. Catching 20 walleye but only keeping 2, promising for the future of the lake but gets alittle fustrating when you are trying to make a meal for the evening! 3/8 ounce jig (color didn't seem to make a difference, pink and white, orange, gold, white)tipped with a minnow. We tried shallower to see if the bigger ones were hanging out there but only picked up a few "small ones" again. I think the proposed slot for Virmilion will help the lake out a great deal, I have seen it on lake Winni. Anyway, hope the report helps some of you.

BR

[Uncle Boney]

If they are hanging out that deep, what do we look for? Extended points until you hit deep water?, underwater humps?

I am going up to the west end this Friday for my only 2 weeks of fishing for the year. Being a bit of a novice and not used to fishing so deep, any help would be appreciated.

[guideman]

When fishing in deeper water for walleyes, it's very important to stay as verticle as possible.

Key in on mainlake points and shorelne breaks and

don't overlook the deep weed edge, especialy when fishing on the west end.

I use 3/8 oz fireball jigs, tipped with minnows or leeches. My favorite colors are firetiger and anything with white. Multi colored jigs will out fish most other patterns when the bite is tough.

One other tip. FISH SLOW!!!

"Ace"

[Darrell Larson]

I was out Saturday evening 6-04-05 for just and hour or so, and I was also concentrating on deeper water, I located the two fish that I kept (15 & 17) in a break area that went from 28' to 32' they seemed to be in that area. Locating such a spot or telling one where that area is, is sometimes tough to do, Vermilion is an awfully big lake, I would look at a good lake map and use your electronics to check these areas out. I will usually jig before I do anything else, the weight of the jig depends on the mph of the wind. Like "Ace" said vertical line drop is important, the color is important but not as important as line control. If your just dragging your bait around the bottom, through the mud, sand or whatever the fish won't see the color anyways. The key word is "vertical". The color I was using Saturday was chartruse and yellow, with leeches. I was fishing on the east end. Good luck and good fishing to you.

Darrell Larson

[james_walleye]

I'll add a little more. My wife and I caught about 100 walleyes in 5 days last week. Same story, not much size. But i did find a few 14-15" in 34-38' of water. My piece of advice on this lake is trust your electronics. We could have caught 300 walleyes easily last week if i would have stayed in a few of the spots i found. I chose too do a lot of searching the last 3 days trying too find a pod of bigger fish. I sometimes cruised for an hour trying too locate fish. The active eyes in that deep water are pretty easy too find on your graph. If you have a decent graph dont even drop a line until you mark fish. (i dont have a $1,000 graph so you dont need top dollar equiptment too put this too use) When i marked them i caught walleyes every time. A few spots i found didnt have a fish on them in the morning but by about 5:00 in the afternoon they were stacked on top of each other. One night the fish were stacked on the windblown side of an island in 19' of water. They next night, same conditions, not a fish too be found there. I cruised around and found them not too far away in that deeper 30+' of water. This might sound pretty basic but i think people (i used too do it all the time) get stuck in a rut of fishing "old hot spots" and plenty of times are fishing empty water. Trusting my graph is something i have paid much more attention too the last couple years and it sure pays off on a lake like Vermillion where it seemed every time i marked fish they were walleyes. Like i said i know too some people who read this, this piece of advice is might be pretty basic i dont know, but i know some people out there could put it too good use.

[Uncle Boney]

Very helpful advice. I've been fishing too shallow in the last couple of years. I have seen fish on my scope in deeper water, but did not believe it. Will a humminbird breakout fish better in 30' or deeper than it will in 12-20'?

[james_walleye]

Pretty much in general you have a better chance of marking fish deeper rather than shallow just because your cone is bigger. Where your cone might be only a 3 feet diameter in 8' of water where it might be 10 feet in diameter in 34' of water. So obviously you have a better chance of marking fish with the wider diameter cone. I'm not sure the exact numbers on how big the cones are but you get the picture. It depends on your transducer also. Your transducer on your boat should have a pretty wide angle cone. When you see fish on your graph a foot or two off bottom those should definately be active fish. Your hummingbird should pick those out i would think.

Too add a little more, we caught all our fish on lindy rigs. I put fatheads on my wifes line. I stuck with leeches. There were times the leeches kept up with the fatheads, but for pure numbers the fatheads were better. Now i will say that the average size was much much better on the leeches. Every fish we boated that was 14-15" was on a leech. I used about 6' snells and too tell you the truth i told my wife too let out extra line and not worry about staying vertical. It was easier for her too feel the bites as many of the bites were more or less just a feeling of weight on the line. Im guessing yes our sinkers were dragging through the mud, but at the same time i've always thought walleyes might be attracted too something sturring up the bottom a bit. It seems too work for me. They come in too investigate and then inhale the offering. With a 6' snell or longer the minnow or leech is swimming off the bottom a bit anyway.