Great Early Season Walleye Bite, Smallies Showing Up
By Licensed Guide Phil Schweik
Even though we are just getting into April the walleye season has been off to a great start. With the warm temperatures in early and mid March we saw a drastic temperature spike causing the water temps to push well into the 50's. The higher than normal temps caused a surge in the walleye spawning season and fish moved to traditional early season location well before normal. Right now a few remaining walleyes are still spawning but most of them are already post spawn and can be found in a few significant areas. Look for shallow rocks in 3 to 5 feet of water and you will find remaining males and a few females that have not yet spawned. Work shoreline areas in 4 to 8 feet of water for post spawn females and the males that have started to head towards their summer locations. Jig and minnow combinations are working well as are casting crankbaits like Rapalas and Thundersticks in Firetiger and orange.
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| Tom Olszewski with a nice spring smallmouth bass. |
Hooksetters Guide Phil Schweik with a post-spawn walleye. |
A nice mess of big crappies ready to be filleted. |
Smallmouth bass are starting to show up on traditional early season spawning grounds and with the premature warm water temperatures this is a couple of weeks early. Shallow rocky areas are holding a few nice smallies and they can be caught on a variety of methods. When targeting spring smallies I like to toss jigs tipped with plastics like tubes, crayfish tails and twister tails even the gulp in the shad style will work. I also like to cast crankbaits like the Suicks Cisco Kid and the Bomber Square "A" right up along shoreline structure and work the baits in and above the rocks. These pre-spawn fish are hungry and aggressive and when you find them hang on to your rod.
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| Schweik with another smallie that are active early on the Wisconsin River. |
Tom and Kurt Olszewski with some good eating walleyes. |
With all the attention being put on the early walleye season don't forget that the spring turkey season is right around the corner and now is the time to be doing your pre-season scouting to be successful. With the early snow melt-off turkeys have been relocating to new areas for a couple of weeks now and locations that you may have had in mind for hunting may no longer be good choices. With the abundance of opportunities for food turkeys have no reason to stay in one location and there are a lot of places for them to feed and the savvy hunter will continually keep track of movements until their season approaches.
Good luck and have a great week.
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