When Mother Nature Rains on the Blue Gill Parade
This battle was personal, a stubborn battle between Mother Nature and top guide and On Wisconsin Outdoors writer Dave Duwe. Would Mother give up the gills on Delavan Lake Sunday to the persistence of Duwe, or would she keep the stingy hold on the 20 fish we were asking for by sending plummeting temperatures, high winds and cold rain? I placed my money on Duwe and his 11 year old son Nate. I also placed my hand on the alarm clock to shut it up at 4:00 am and dragged myself out of bed to take the 50 minute ride to the Walworth County lake.
Cold weather shut off the Delavan bite on Delavan temporarily Sunday morning but Nate Duwe stayed persistent and won the day.
Not-so-little-anymore Nate, by the way, is the little guy with the sunfish held close who graced the cover of On Wisconsin Outdoors in the May-June issue. I took that photo about six years ago on Delavan. That Nate is a girl magnet. Every woman from 4 to 84 fell in love with that cover shot.
Anyway, the big gills have been hitting well during a consistent bite on Delavan. If I could bring home a meal, I would be the hero in my wife, Lori’s eyes. But the weather moved in with my plans and every boat-load of anglers by mid-morning was complaining of a great bite gone south.
Dave Duwe has been targeting the deeper water to target bigger gills. Straight lining (4 or 6 pound test) a #12 hook dressed with a leaf worm with a Snyder Lures Gold Ant attractor right beneath the boat positioned off the weed line has been the ticket to fast and furious action.
“They spawned the first or second week of June and will finish the year in 40 feet of water,” the guide said. “Those big fish suspend on this lake and right now we’ve been getting them in 12-15 feet of water. The key is once the bigger fish move to deeper water you won’t be getting the smaller fish that hang around the piers. In the deeper water one of every three fish caught will be a keeper. Around the piers in shallower water one of every 20 fish will be a keeper. The pattern has been good. You can get them like this on Pine and Geneva too. They school by size and suspend so thick that the transducer can’t get through them.”
Guide Dave Duwe and son Nate finally find the bigger gills in deeper water on Delavan Sunday after cold weather shuts down the bite.
On Delavan, with the colder weather action had slowed significantly from the recent norm. But we had the Duwe ace in the hole; an intimate knowledge of Delavan and sudden recall of past hot spots that provided pannie success. What did the Statler Brothers sing? “Oh, DU-WE remember these…spots?” Well maybe not, but these Duwe's did, and we ultimately tried enough of those spots to finally hit the right bite; enough big fish to 9 inches anyway, to scoff at Mother Nature’s bad intentions.
“Leaf worms work better than nightcrawlers,” Duwe said. "The way it’s been, when you get on a school of big fish you have your limit of gills in an hour. We never keep that many, maybe half that many and the smaller fish that are hooked too deep. There is no sense in throwing them back.”
A surprisingly high number of clients will hire Duwe to target bluegill, but the guide specializes too in targeting smallmouth, largemouth or northern pike on Lake Geneva and Delavan. Smallies will school in Geneva in August with the potential to catch 20 to 30 fish. Those fish too, school by class, so the catch may average 14 inches or fish between 17 and 20 inches or 3-1/2 to five pounds of fightn’ fins.
A largemouth bass takes Dave’s Duwe’s leaf worm while the guide fishes bluegills on Delavan Lake Sunday morning.
“The best time to come to Delavan is when the weather might not be so good,” Duwe said. “It’s such a good lake because you can only keep one fish over 18 inches. But it gets crowded because it is so good. Our biggest pike out here is 42 inches. Delavan and Geneva are great lakes for big fish.”
After a few moves Sunday, we found what we were looking for and the cooler filled up. From a holding pattern of just seven fish on ice after two hours, we headed for the landing with a collective 20 fish for three of us in about just another 30 minutes. Then we made the best trade. Dave put the fillet knife to work with me handling skinning duties and buying breakfast. Lori thanked me later for leaving the bones out of this very welcome package of meat…thanks to Dave.
Connect with Dave Duwe’s Guide Service at fishlakegeneva.com or 608-883-2050. E-mail Dave at fishdelavanlake@gmail.com. And look for his columns in every issue of On Wisconsin Outdoors.
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Shoot straight.
Dick Ellis