The May post-spawn bite has been picking up as more walleyes and saugers pass through the narrows at the Northeast end of Lake Wisconsin on their return from spawning upstream. These post-spawn fish come down out of the river in waves, and are transient, here today and gone tomorrow as they move through on their way to summer locations. Because of this constant movement, locations can be inconsistent from day to day. The best methods to locate fish are techniques that cover water such as trolling crank baits or drifting with a jig and crawler or dragging a jig and plastic presentation. You could choose to anchor on a spot and wait, but if you keep moving, odds are you’ll contact more fish in less time.
Try to be versatile and keep changing it up until you find something that works. In the last two weeks I’ve caught fish a number of different ways – jigging blade baits on 10’ break lines one day, dragging jigs in 6′-8′ the next day, then pulling slow death rigs on break lines the day after that. The second half of May typically provides a good shallow water trolling bite. We need some sustained sunny days & warm nights to push fish shallow. Once this happens the walleyes will move up as that is where the bulk of the food will be. Warm South winds can have a positive effect as well as they push warm surface water to the North shoreline. The lake, especially the shallow back bays, is warmer than the mouth of the river and some walleyes are there now as crappie fishermen are picking up walleyes here and there throughout the lake. As of Sunday, the lake was a few degrees warmer (low 60’s) than the mouth of the river (57-58).
Dragging a lightweight jig & plastic in depths of 5′ to 10′ both upstream and down, can be a good presentation for walleyes when it’s sunny and warm, and especially if it coincides with lesser flow in the river, but drifting downstream with a jig & crawler or Lindy Rig may be equally productive and a more leisurely approach. Minnows still work now and it is cool enough yet to not be any trouble keeping them alive, but are not a necessity. Pulling Slow Death rigs on bottom bouncer along break lines has been producing and trolling crank baits with lead core has provided some action as well. As previously mentioned, these fish are transient and many are just moving through, so you need to keep moving and changing up techniques until you make contact. Last year the bite really turned on around May 15 and stayed that way well into July.
Tight lines,
Gary Sanders
Lake Wisconsin Walleyes, LLC
www.lakewisconsinwalleyes.com