German 'Eyes

[Team Otter]

Decided to give German a try tonight before heading back to Madison tomorrow night.

I started out long-lining shallow runnin' shad raps along the whole east shore in 4 - 7' of water with no results. Not a fish. I made a move out to 10 - 12' of water and ran deep diving shad raps 90 - 120' back and again had no results. I then moved over to a piece of mid-lake structure and again ran deep diving shad raps around the perimeter of the structure only to come up empty-handed again. I then decided to move over the "first" main basin on the lake and start looking for suspended fish with deep diving wally divers. On my first pass, I noticed two nice "arcs" at 22' in 29' of water. I made the appropriate adjustments with my crank bait and ran the bait through these two fish. I instantly made contact and it turned out to be a 23" 'eye. I quickly turned the boat around after releasing the fish and went back through the same area. I made contact about 10 minutes later on another dandy 'eye, with this one measuring 24.25". However, those are the only two fish I marked out there, so I decided to go back to "old reliable". I moved to the SE corner of the lake and started casting cranks and plastic but this didn't produce anything either. As the sun neared the tree tops, I moved to the NE corner of the lake and casted cranks to a small weed mat that was loaded with baitfish. I ended up catching about a half-dozen 12 - 14" 'eyes in 20 minutes before heading in.

Although others might be doing well on German right now, I would define the bite as slow. If I had more time out there tonight, I think a person could really put some dandy females in the boat pulling suspended cranks. Those shallow fish out there really seem to have gone "negative" but that's the way it goes. I'll be on Madison tomorrow night after work and will post my report following that outing as well.

Good luck out there!

[Willy]

I wouldn't really say that is slow. It is the middle of July and to catch two nice fish and a bunch of small ones is still decent. Most guys that are fishing now are having a hard time putting a single walleye in the boat, let alone 8-10 fish with two being 4-5 pounds. There are alot of the 23-25 inch range fish in German right now I think.

[Team Otter]

Willy,

Maybe "slow" wasn't the right choice of words but from past experience on German this time of year, I thought it was slow. Generally speaking, German has a phenomenal shallow bite from now until about Labor Day from what I've experienced. I can't blame the slower bite on the heat because generally the heat has helped! However, I'm certainly not complaining about the fish that I did catch because I know this can be a tough time of the year to put fish in the boat. Also, both of those females last night were very healthy. That 24.25" fish was pushing 6 pounds. Must have been full of golden shiners!

We'll see how it goes on Madison tonight. Hopefully I can replicate the outing I had last week. Look for my report tonight.

[Bassboy1645]

otter, thanks for the advice and i will definetly give yuor tactics a try for the tourney. By the way, any specific colors or patterns to those wally divers? Or are the eyes hiting just cranks in general if u put it in their face and it looks like a baitfish? Also its not the shallow fish i have problems with but these suspended fish seem to give me fits. I heard somewhere that somtimes they dont show up on the flasher. Is this true? and finally do u ever suspect u would do better with live bait??? Thanks for the advice!!!!!!!

[Team Otter]

No problem bassboy.

Black and silver and black and gold patterns work best for me on German but I have had sporadic luck with charteuse and pink.

I don't know about a flasher, but I typically have no trouble picking up suspended fish on my Lowrance X71.

Crawler harnesses using snap weights behind boards can also be effective.

[Bassboy1645]

otter, u seem to know what ur talking about.........you would think that someone like yourself fishes tournaments. U ever consider it? What about those tues nighters on the local lakes?

[Team Otter]

I fish some tournaments in SD and a few other small events in northern MN from time to time but that's about it. If I had sponsors, more time off from work, etc, etc I would definitely like to get into it more. However, heavy-duty tournament fishing is not an option right now. If anything, I've tossed around starting up a guide service. To me, that would be more rewarding than winning a tournament. Although I have placed high and also won a few tournaments, there's nothing like putting smiles on people's faces when getting them on fish.