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Wisconsin's Big Winne 1/02/08
When an ice fisherman hears Big Winne, they most likely think of Winnibigoshish up in Norhtern Minnesota and the awesome perch fishing it has produced over the past years. Icefishermen from across the country have looked upon northern Minnesota or North Dakota for great perch fishing through the ice. The local governments and chambers have spent a lot of money promoting the fishing in these areas but is the fishing that much better or is it just the idea of going on a fishing vacation that attracts people to these areas? I have made trips to almost every part of the ice belt over the past few years and I can say from experience the fishing is not what it used to be 5 or 10 years ago in the popular spots such as Devil’s Lake, North Dakota or Lake Winnibigoshish up in northern Minnesota. Don’t get me wrong these places offer excellent resorts and fishing for many species that are normally harder to catch around Wisconsin. I believe that is mainly due to all the pressure from the thousands of anglers that flock to the lakes each and every weekend. However if you take the big picture into effect and know what is happening on Wisconsin Largest inland lake, you may think twice about where your next fishing excursion will be. The Lake Winnebago System At almost 138,000 acres, Lake Winnebago is
considered to be one of the best walleye factories in the Midwest.
Anglers from all over the country visit the lake during the
spring, summer and fall months to target what is probably the most
sought after game fish in
Where to start The three most popular lakes include Lake Winnebago, Lake Butte des Morts and Lake Poygan. All three lakes have many public access points that are usually kept plowed by local sportsman’s clubs with the donations that are received from the fisherman using the landings. From January until ice out later in March or early April, Lake Winnebago is probably the hottest places to fish for walleyes, perch and whitebass with the perch keeping you busy most of the time. The numbers of perch in the lake are at an all time high with an average length of 8-10 inches being highly common. There are a few year classes in the 11-13” range with less numbers but still offer the chance of catching some nice limits of jumbo perch. Key spots to target include the south west end of the lake near Fond du Lac from Point Comfort down to Kelly’s Point or Wendt’s. This area is loaded with structure that the perch relate to all year long. The shallow bays with small creeks dumping into the lake provide early and late ice action and deeper sand flats or reef edges provide the best fishing during the middle part of the season. There is no one set method to catching these perch. You can use tip-ups with small shiners or rosie reds, jigging with small jigs like the Custom Jigs and Spins Diamond Jigs or Rat Finkies tipped with spikes or waxworms; that is always a reliable method no matter what mood the fish are in. If you are fishing with younger anglers that want to watch a bobber go down, rig up some rods with small #14 treble hooks and little fathead minnows. Keep the bait about 2-6 inches off the bottom and wait for a bite. One thing that is almost necessary to finding these fish are some good electronics; either a flasher or an underwater camera. I prefer the MarCum LX-5 flasher with the dual beam transducer for targeting the perch which tend to hang tight to the bottom. Otherwise setting up the VS-380 underwater camera is still the most fun way to fish regardless of age or experience. These perch like to move on a daily basis so being portable is definitely an advantage and a recommendation if you want to catch more fish than the average guy. Moving up to Oshkosh, there are four main places to fish. South Asylum Bay, Miller’s Bay, Black Bird Reef area and out from the mouth of the Fox River. South Asylum and Miller’s bay are shallower bays that contain a vast amount of weeds. The larger perch love to feed on baby bluegills and there are no better places to find baby bluegills than these two spots. One thing I cannot stress enough is to fish shallow. On an upcoming Midwest Outdoors Television show, we demonstrated how effective shallow water weeds are in the middle of the winter. Fishing in depths as little as 2 feet can provide some of the biggest and best fish of the season. Use small augers and drill a lot of holes once you get to a spot. Moving around chasing the schools will produce a lot more fish than sitting in one spot while fishing in these conditions. I like to set up a couple of tip ups rigged with small rosie reds around the area that I am jigging. When the flags go off, I will get the fish from the tip-up and then jig in the same hole to try and catch as many fish out of the roaming schools as I can. That is why I like to drill a lot of holes. If you have a couple of people out, by watching the tip-ups, you can determine the paths of these fish and intercept them with your jigging rods. While jigging I prefer a glow red gill pill tipped with chena bait or crushed waxworms. Out near Blackbird and Garlic Reefs, you will find the same type of structure as the area around Point Comfort and Wendt’s. The same type of techniques can be used in both spots. Try and find the right depth at where the fish are feeding and if a crowd of people start to develop, move away from the crowd staying in the depth you were catching the larger fish. Staying away from noise on the ice will greatly increase your catch of larger fish! Venturing out into the middle of nowhere can be a
frustrating or a rewarding ordeal on Lake Winnebago.
With the extremely large numbers of baitfish swimming around out
in the middle of the lake, it is amazing that we can still fool these
fish into biting our fake lures.
Having a locator like the LX-5 and a GPS to mark spots of
activity will make things a whole lot easier when you want to return to
the spot on the spot. A good
area to start is about 2-3 miles straight out from the mouth of the
river or off of Ceape Street in Oshkosh.
For whatever reason that area out from the river holds fish every
year. Later into March, the
walleye fishing will pick up tremendously as the fish start to school up
before their annual spawning run.
The best fishing takes place from the end of February to the end
of March or until it is unsafe to travel out on the ice.
Jigging spoons like the Custom Jigs Stingers in a gold color work
very well otherwise the traditional Copper Swedish Pimple is also a very
reliable bait. Once
all the work is done Big Lake = Big Resources Fishing Winnebago is not hard, you have to have a little patience and be able to move around very efficiently. The rewards can be outstanding and in my opinion just as good as any other lake in the Midwest. If you want to venture off to do a little pike fishing or maybe some bluegill and crappie fishing head up the system to Butte des Morts or Poygan. The further up the system you travel the shallower and more weeded the lakes become, providing better fishing for pike, bass, bluegills and crappies. One thing I can guarantee you is you will never run out of places to fish! Big lakes carry the meaning BIG. Everybody one time or another has stumbled across a little honey hole and caught fish like they were being pulled out of an aquarium. As with any small lakes or good little holes, the word travels, more and more people appear and take advantage of the excellent fishing and before you know the little spot is an empty bucket of water. Small spots simply cannot handle the pressure or produce and reproduce the amount of fish a large body of water can. While fishing a large body of water like Winnebago there may be a thousand fishermen on the lake but you would never know it because of its size and the number of places to fish. As I stated earlier, keeping away from the large groups of people and all the crazy noise associated with them will definitely put more and better fish on the ice. The big lake has a large resource that can withstand the pressure and typically will produce bigger fish of all species. Next time you are planning a trip, keep Wisconsin’s BIG Winne in mind. If you are after a sightseeing adventure, visit the Northwoods of Wisconsin, or Minnesota. If good fishing is what you want, Lake Winnebago and the entire Winnebago system can fulfill all your needs!
Troy Peterson, “Mr.Bluegill” is a multi-species guide in Wisconsin
specializing in walleyes and panfish.
Troy is also an accomplished photographer, videographer writer
and presenter. His sponsors
include MarCum Technologies, Frabill, Jiffy, Custom Jigs & Spins,
Humminbird, MinnKota,
GLoomis, Pure Fishing and TTI Hook Companies. He can be contacted at
www.mrbluegill.com Good Ice'n Mr.Bluegill
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Wisconsin,
the walleye.
and I find an active school of fish I will set up a bunch of Reel Weeds
around the Frabill shack and make myself comfortable.
For
me, going on long trips with friends and family are fun, but with the
high price of fuel and tighter budgets, I can walk out my back door to
catch the same quality of fish as I would 700 miles away.