Fishing Report June 2018
June 15-21, 2018
Not much has changed over the last two weeks as far as the Woman Lake walleye fishing is concerned. We are still catching some very nice fish in the 17-23 inch range every day, but we are not yet catching large numbers daily. In a typical year we can often take limits of keeper walleyes in mid-June on Woman Lake, but we are not getting that many right now. We had another big mayfly hatch this week, as well as a big caddis hatch, and I suspect those did not help the walleye bite. We could spot thousands and thousands of minnows and small perch hitting the bugs at the surface, and then we would occasionally see a big bass or other large predator fish break the surface chasing the perch and minnows. Surface water temps have now reached 70 degrees, and I am still hoping we get a flurry of real hot fishing before the end of the month. Many of the fish we finding are still on shore related structure in the 17-20 foot depths, and we are not seeing much off the main lake humps and sunken islands yet.
June 5-10, 2018
Walleye fishing remains good, about the same as last week, but not great yet. We are catching nice 18-21 inch fish every day, but not any walleyes over 4 lbs., or large numbers of fish quite yet. Surface water temperatures have varied in the 64-67 degree range and I would anticipate the bite will continue to improve. 17 to 19 feet is still the primary depth where we are finding the walleyes and they are still mostly staged on shore related structure. We had our first large mayfly hatch late last week, and that slowed the bite down for a couple days.
When I am fishing on my own, my boat partner is typically Jersey, a three year old, Brittany Spaniel. She had a run-in with a porcupine today and we had to pull 12-13 quills out of her nose, tongue, and paw with the pliers. She suffered no major injury, but I hope she learned a lesson regarding porcupines. I also had another encounter with a local black bear who has returned and completely destroyed all my bird feeders, again. Maybe I need to learn a lesson, too.
June 1-5, 2018
After a weekend of strong storms and wind, Woman Lake walleyes have maybe begun to settle into more normal spring patterns. We are now catching some nice size walleyes (16-22 inches) in more typical depths and locations over the last few days. We still have not seen large schools of walleyes bunched up, but we are seeing smaller pods of aggressive fish in the 17-19 foot depths in traditional spring locations. Many fish are still holding on shore related sand points, but some fish are beginning to come from main lake reefs. Live bait rigs and leeches have been the preferred presentation for sure, and both eating size walleyes and 20+ inch throw backs are caught daily. We have not been catching daily limits of fish, but a nice stringer of keepers with a few “picture” fish have become the norm, well more than enough for a few delicious fish fry dinners. We still have not found many big walleyes (23 -27 inches) as yet. It looks like Woman Lake is returning to a more normal June fishing status, and we are eagerly awaiting the traditional HOT early-to-mid June bite. It is only going to get better.