How's fishing Clifford?

[Darrell Larson]

Cliff what's going on with the fishing? Hopefully the dock person has the lift in the right spot this time. See you two next weekend if you are around. Looking at leaving on Thursday night. Don't forget to respond to my original question, in regards to how is the fishing. Later Darrell.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Hi Darrell,

The fishing has been good all week.

Walleyes almost everywhere I have tried the past few days.

I did well by the little island you like to fish by a couple of evenings too!

See you this weekend.

Cliff

[Darrell Larson]

Sounds good Cliff, thanks for the report. I was going to try and get the Grand Kiddies out and try and teach the two of them a little about walleye fishing. See you soon, until then take care and as always, regards to you and yours.

Darrell.

[vermilionwally]

Just got back from vermilion fishing on pike bay all weekend. fishing on pike bay has slowed to a crawl. Got 3 walleyes 2 today and 1 friday all caught on rapalas. 2 15 inchers and a 14 incher. I think its because of this cold front. Does anyone know if there is kind of a different color shade between male and female walleyes. One that i caught today was kind of a paler whiter color than the others and i caught one like that last year too. My grandpa thought it mightve been a female.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

I believe that the lighter colored walleye that you caught in Pike Bay was probably a walleye that had recently moved into the bay from Big Bay.

The walleyes that live in Pike Bay all have a golden color to them caused by the dark tannin stained water that flows into the bay from the Pike River and the East and West Two Rivers.

Cliff

[vermilionwally]

Your probably right, I never thought of that before. Like in lake superior how the lake run fish are more of a silvery color. So do you ever catch any real dark ones out on big bay. This one and one that i caught last year were the only ones that stood out to me as being lighter colored. I suppose i gotta get out on big bay more to see the difference. Hows fishing been out there for you?

[nytelyter]

hehehe you must be the one with all the answers cliff or at least a few of them. mu pops is gonna be up there tue wed and thursday fishing out of the casino. and he has seen you out on the lake a few times amd knows i am a frequenter of this site. he ask me for a few tips from ya in advance. not wanting any pin points or nothing but maybe what colors and structure. if you see a couple of old farts in a boat that has one guy fishing and the other messing around with his toys(electronics) say hi to tom and mark. they will surely give you a wave back. have a good week oin the water. ... paul

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Vermilionwally,

The fishing has been very good out in the Big Bay area.

We are getting limits of 13" to 15" fish on every outing so far!

Big Bay will almost always produce walleyes somewhere even in a cold front situation! Yesterday my son and I boated 20 walleyes and kept out limit of 14" to 15-1/2" fish even after having light snow on the ground in the morning and the temps having dropped to 30 degrees (and a 15mph East wind)!

Cliff

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Paul,

I have been getting a lot of walleyes not very far from the Everett Bay narrows.

Tell you dad to start at around 26 feet and to keep moving deeper to around 36 to 38 feet until they find active fish during the day. Evenings and early morning will have fish in much shallower water on some days.

A plain Lindy Rig with a #4 red Gamagatsu bait hook, 3 ft. 8# leader, rainbow or fathead minnows, and enough weight to keep the bait right on the bottom will catch fish all day for them! Move as slow as possible.

1/4oz. and 3/8oz. jigs have also been working very well.

Firetiger, orange/chartuse, pink/chartuse, and metalic green colors have been my best colors.

Tell the "old farts" to stop and say hi if they see me. I will be happy to tell them what is working if I am on fish at the time!

Cliff

[Hitman54]

Cliff,

I appreciate you being so open with your advice on how to fish the big "V". On Saturday I was up with three friends and we did just what you said to do. Two of us fished with Jigs and minnow and two used the lindy rig approach out in Big Bay. We fished from 18-32 ft of water and just let the wind push us around, had to use a drift sock to slow us down. The guy with the lindy with the plain hook and about a 6 ft. snell outfished the rest of us but by no means was it a hot and heavy bite for any of us. We did manage our 16 fish in about 5 hours.

[vermilionwally]

Have you caught many slot walleyes this year? I only got 1 in the slot last year and havent got any in it this year although the average size im catching has gone up since last year.

[Walleye Guy]

We had a group up last Thursday thru Saturday. Many of us have been making this trip since 1991. We caught more fish over 17 inches this last weekend then we have in any year in the past. Conservatively we caught and released 20 walleyes over 20 inches long. Biggest was 24.5. Many were 22-23. We also released many that were between 17 and 20 inches.

The one thing that was odd was that we caught all the bigger fish in one area. The other areas we fished we caught many fish, but all were less than 17 inches long.

I don't know if one year of having a closed slot can make a difference or if our experience was a unique.