Fishing Report May 2017
May 25-27,2017
The walleye bite on Woman Lake has been phenomenal so far this spring. Over the first two weeks of the season, we have caught limits of very nice walleyes (16-20 inches) every day, and we have now started picking up some larger walleyes (up to 24 inches) over the last couple days. We have released most of the larger fish that were healthy, but we are also enjoying some delicious batter fried walleye dinners. This is probably the hottest bite I have seen in my 10 years of guiding on this lake. Water temperatures are still in the upper 50 degree range and the walleyes are holding on shoreline related sand breaks in 17-20 feet of water. We are catching them on live bait rigs with leeches, as well as with vertical jigging lures.
May 18-24, 2017
We have had plenty of rain and cold this week, but both the walleye and crappie bites remains solid. The main lake has not seemed to warm up much and remains in the mid-to-upper 50 degree range. The forecast for Memorial Day weekend is for warmer temperatures and light winds, so I anticipate great fishing for the holiday. The walleyes are still staged and actively feeding of sandy shoreline related breaks in the 17-20 foot depths, and we are catching limits of 16-20 inchers them on both minnows and leeches. We have not seen many bigger fish (over 22") so far this spring, but we should start finding them soon. We are also catching walleyes readily on vertical jigs (without bait) over this same structure.
May 9-14, 2017 Walleye Opener
The weather this week has been stunningly beautiful with warm days and sunshine most of the week. The main lake water temperature on Woman Lake was 55 degrees on the morning of the Walleye Opener, and the air temperature hit the upper 70s with light winds, making for a most pleasant day in the boat. The walleyes liked it as well and they were feeding aggressively on sandy shoreline breaks at the 15-17 foot depths. We boated 14 walleyes (16-20 inches) in 5 hours on Saturday, but we also lost 6 walleyes at boatside before we changed to larger hooks to accommodate the size of the shiner minnows we were using for bait. The northern pike were also quite active and on Woman Lake you will always catch a bunch of northerns when you fish with large shiners. We also found a number of bonus jumbo perch (10-11+ inchers) that would take our 5 inch shiners. Sunday brought some gusty winds which made boat control a challenge, but the solid walleye bite was the same. The slab crappie bite is now real hot and we hooked some beauties over 14 inches in the days leading up to the walleye opener. They should begin to move out of the shallow bays and harbors soon, and start showing up in the thicker bullrush beds.
May 2-5, 2017
Despite the fact that we experienced an early May snowstorm, the lakes continue to slowly warm up, and the crappies are actively feeding in the warmer bays and backwaters. We have had no problem catching crappie limits on days when it was nice enough to fish. I expect the crappie bite to get even better over the next couple weeks.