May 2017 Editor: Tom Raschke tomraschke50@gmail.com Club Web Site: http://www.yaharafishingclub.org The Return of Jigging Always jig for walleyes on a tight line! If you learned nothing else from Dave McCoy at the April meeting, this will put more walleyes in the boat. However, if you listened close and took notes fast, you learned a lot more. Dave divides walleye fishing into two seasonsthe cold-water season and the warm-water season and there are techniques that are season dependent so it is important to understand the seasonal aspects of walleye fishing. Techniques are season and equipment dependent. Generally the techniques are applicable to all waters. Even though Dave talked primarily about fishing Green Bay waters, the techniques were pioneered on the Mississippi River. Cold-water techniques will generally work in warm water but the opposite is not true. Warm water techniques uses more speed so they don t work on more lethargic cold-water fish. The techniques Dave discussed for the coldwater period was what I call traditional jigging, using lipless crankbaits or blade baits and jigging spoons, and using swimbaits. For warm water Dave talked about swim bait casting. For traditional jigging Dave likes Precision Jig Heads in Ford blue color. Precision Jigs are teardrop shaped and fall to the bottom better than traditional ball shaped jigs. In cold water walleyes will generally be within six inches of the bottom so you only need to lift the jig four inches off the bottom. Walleyes will feed down and pin bait to the bottom. When dropping the jig, do it slowly so there is no slack in the line. For this technique Dave uses an at least 6.5 foot rod with an extra fast tip, with 8-pound braided line and six feet of 6-to-8 pound fluorocarbon leader. I don t have in my notes what Dave baits the jig with. I am sure minnows would work but Dave said he hasn t used a minnow in five years. I assume you could use plastics that are discussed later. Dave recommends number-6, blue-chrome Rippn -Raps for casting lipless crankbaits. Use number-7 in the summer and the Tennessee Shad color would be good for Lake Mendota. Use a long rod to make long casts. Place the boat crosswise to the wind and cast with the wind at your back. That way you fish 1 Notes By Stan Nichols an area before you drift over it. Keep the rod tip high and let the lure fall slowly. A 7-foot medium action rod with and extra fast tip, 10-14 pound braid and a 3-5 foot fluorocarbon leader works for this technique. Reel the lure in slowly Jigging spoons include Cicadas, Echotails, Gold Buddies, and Hopkins spoons in gold, chartreuse on red, and purple-silver-blue. A 7-foot, medium action rod, with 6-10 pound braided line works well with these lures. Swimbaits include Ringworms, Paddle Tails, and Moxys. Favorite colors are chartreuse with an orange core and purple. These are hooked onto Precision Jigs heads and either quarter cast or pulled upstream. Quarter casting means casting 90-degrees or greater to the current flow. Don t cast upstream-remember no slack line. Use enough weight to hit bottom and lift and drop the jig. For pulling, troll upstream at about 0.3-to-0.6 miles per hour. Cast at least 50 feet behind the boat. Use enough jig weight to hit bottom. Pull the jig forward and then let it set back. If your arms get tired you can just let the jig drag on the bottom. Use 8-10 pound mono line for this method. Braided line is too fast and can pull the jig out of the fish s mouth. All these techniques depend on feel. I don t know if these jigs and plastics can be bought locally, but they can be ordered online at Customjigs.com/bfishn-tackle/. The last technique is for warm water and uses large bodied swim baits. The one Dave suggested was a size-1or 2, Shiver Minnow. A Shiver Minnow looks something like a jigging Rapala and that is another lure that could be used. This technique works in deeper and warmer (50-degree plus) water. A stiff rod and cadence is important. Use a sharp snap on the up stroke and a slow drop so the lure glides. A 7-to-8 foot rod with an extra fast tip and monofilament line is recommended. Fish usually hit on the glide or they might just be there on the upstroke As a final note, Dave is a big fan of side scan sonar. He said many of the professional no longer use traditional sonar. I don t have one so have no experience using it.
Outings Yahara Fishing Club Want to go on an outing? Want to get to know other club members? Want to fish locally or new lakes out of town chasing the hottest bite? Have a place you want to go to? Then you simply need to sign up to say you re interested in going on any or all of these outings. An outing can happen with enough interest but if no one signs up then the outing can t happen. Outings without exact dates are either weather dependent, river levels and based on the timing of the bite. Once you re signed up you will get more specific details of the trip. May: We are still trying to do this outing as soon as the weather cooperates and the water levels come down to fishable levels. Watch emails for this upcoming outing. Lake Wisconsin crappies and walleye. Nothing happening so far but the water will warm soon and this could be a great local trip for slab crappies. May: Again we will do this outing with less wind so watch for emails about this. Lake Michigan out of Milwaukee Harbor or Oak Creek for lake & brown trout and possibly some coho. This trip is weather dependent with winds of 10 mph or less ideal for small boats May 6th Lake Mendota: We will be going out on the opener. Sign up if you haven t already. Let s use the information learned from recent speaker Eric Haataja to catch smallies, walleyes and more! May 19-21, 26-29 or anytime during the week 15-19 & 22-26: Still time to sign up! Big Bay De Noc smallmouth outing. Come to Nahma, MI and have a fantastic trip with us! June 10th that weekend or during the week of 6/5-10 likely: Sturgeon Bay smallmouth outing- spend a day or a few days chasing big bronzebacks Louisiana: We have club members wanting an outing chasing redfish and tuna. Contact me if interested so we can set this up! Lake Michigan: Salmon charter fishing trip out of Port Washington. We have at least 4 club members wanting to go so this will be happening for sure. Join a group of club members for a great time. Please contact me if interested Lake Erie: Want to go on a walleye, smallmouth or perch outing on Lake Erie this summer? Contact me. Canada- I just booked my Canada trip for July 2017 how about you? f you want to go to Canada NOW is the time to prepare! We have a trip going to Eagle Lake again in July but you can go at ANY time with several resorts to choose from. How about Rainy Lake? Lake of the Woods? Lac Seul? Get excited and let s start planning a trip of a lifetime! USA- Canada too far or other reasons? How about traveling within the US to the Minnesota sides of Lake of the Woods or Rainy Lake? Devil s Lake? Lake Oahe, SD? Lake Gogebic, MI? How about our Big Bay de Noc outing? Green Bay? Guided trips on local lakes, Green Bay/Sturgeon Bay or others: If anyone would like to learn a lake better or techniques with a guide, join other club members to get a better rate. Contact me if interested. All outings above are open to club members, our Rock Valley Angler friends, your family and friends! We need members with boats but you can participate even if you don t have one. Sign-ups will be at club meetings but look for a new link out on our website soon. As always you can contact me at any time to sign-up or if you have questions or just want advice. If you have any outing ideas please let me or anyone on the board know! Jim Pankratz 608-709-6442 or jimannepan@aol.com 2
Notes From The Prez Yahara Fishing Club As I sit in my kitchen writing this short article, it s the end of April, and a very gloomy, cold, and wet Sunday afternoon. Even so, I find myself wondering: where did the winter go? I retrieved my fishing boat from winter storage about ten days ago, and it s sitting in my garage, ready to go for the season. I m contemplating getting it launched and over to the Village Marina for the summer, very soon. My gear is stowed, the batteries have been reinstalled, and I just have to find a couple of hours this coming week to get the boat in the water. Happily, this all signals that the resumption of the open-water game fishing season in our area lakes is only a few days away (May 6th), and that thought makes me smile. Looking back at the winter months, I keep thinking the time went by rather quickly. I did very little ice fishing, but I kept a focus on fishing in other ways. That included a lot of activities related to the Yahara Fishing Club, including Kids Ice Fishing day in January, our annual Club auction of donated fishing gear and the Madison Fishing Expo in February (not to mention the Club outing to Sturgeon in search of the elusive, at least for me, whitefish), and opportunities to hear a number of very accomplished fishing experts making presentations on our favorite subject at our Club meetings and at other events. I m primed to apply all that I learned about techniques for catching more walleyes, bass, and panfish. Three weeks of vacation in the Florida panhandle (a.k.a. the forgotten coast ) helped, too. I fished in the Gulf of Mexico every day, and I learned a lot about ocean fishing from other fishermen, from bait shop owners, and from articles in local magazines and newspapers. Ocean fishing is a different ballgame, with entirely different fish species, and its own range of options for equipment and techniques and bait, not to mention a virtual universe of new and tempting ways to rationalize spending money on acquiring just the right kinds of fishing rods, reels, and other gear! As we in the Club ponder getting out on the Madison area lakes to pursue the many kinds of fish which are found there, let s keep in mind a couple of Club sponsored activities in which we can be involved this summer. I refer to the Club s Kids Fishing Day event, scheduled for the first Saturday in June, (June 1st this year) and to our traditional summer on -the-water meetings. We want to see lots of Club members in attendance for Kids Fishing Day, helping the kids with the rods, reels, and bait which the Club provides, and with using their new gear to catch fish in the Warner Park lagoon. As for the onthe-water meetings, we tentatively plan to have, as per usual, our traditional three meetings, to be held on the second Wednesdays of June, July, and August, on Lakes Mendota, Monona, and Waubesa, respectively. The meetings will start at roughly 6:00 p.m., and there will be food to purchase, and during dinner, a short business meeting, leaving plenty of time to get out on the lakes and fish. So, mark your calendars, and stay tuned for further details. Now, if we can just order up some better fishing weather starting with the first weekend in May! Gard 3
10 Years of Yahara Fishing Club Newsletters on the Website All of the previous newsletters are now on the website, all the way back to April 2007. You can pick them by going to the Members Only page, and entering the password for members. All club officers and many others know this easy to remember password. You then are at the screen displayed below left. Click on Previous Yahara Fishing Club Newsletters. The screen below on the right then comes up. Just click on any issue and it should pop up. The next step is for a club member to create an index to the articles, so that you can search on a topic and see the articles. We will post the index where it is open to the public as an enticement to join the club. Let me know if you are interested in working on this. Tom Raschke 4
Pattern Fishing So do you practice pattern fishing? Pattern fishing is a term that Babe Winkelman uses to describe all the variables that go into catching fish. When you go out fishing are you thinking about the 7 factors of fish location to help you decide on where to start? The nature of the fish, season of the year, available structure, available cover, food balance, local weather and unnatural influences all have an impact and are not necessarily the same for different species of fish. What tools and techniques do you use when you find the fish? Babe talks about the tools as being your electronics, lake maps, boat and trolling motors and then the obvious rods, reels, line, lures, terminal tackle and or live bait. Do you match these tools to the fish species, location, depth, cover and structure? Do you have these tools mastered? Do you own all the right gear but still don t catch many fish? Why is that? Babe thinks that s because we either are not aware or forget about the most important part of fishing which is the technique. Just thinking about our last club meeting when Dave McCoy was talking about the different techniques he was using to catch tons of walleyes on the Fox River in Depere when most around him were not should make a lot more sense. Are you using different techniques to put fish in the boat or the same old jig and minnow? With lures you need to consider the depth, speed, size, color, action, vibration, text and scent. You then need to master these for your species of fish after using your tools to find them along with the factors of fish location. WOW fishing sounds a lot more complicated than it s often made out to be! Babe says that technique separates skill from blind luck and that good fisherman understand this well. In conclusion the next time you go fishing you just may want to work on developing a pattern to catch more (or any) fish. Now to watch this classic episode from Babe Winkleman talking about pattern fishing click on the link in our newsletter email. The video is 6 minutes long. Jim Pankratz Mary Regel Helps Us Again Once more Mary has donated $500.00 towards the Kids Fishing Days from the Rod Regel Memorial 5
Kids Fishing Day, June 3, 2017 Where: Warner Park Lagoon When: June 3rd Time: 9:00am to noon The Yahara Fishing Club takes great pride in our commitment to introduce young people to fishing. Each year the club hosts two kids fishing events where we purchase and give away fishing rods and reels and instruct kids on both open water and ice fishing techniques. Our main charity raffle event, based around the Wisconsin Fishing Expo, supports the club s efforts in this area. The first 300 kids receive a free fishing rod and bait along with help from our members. A free lunch of hot dogs, chips, and soft drink will be provided after the fishing. All members are encouraged to show up early to prepare the rods and other gear, and to hang around to help the kids and their parents, many of whom have never fished before. It is quite a bit of fun. Karlette Schoen is coordinating this project. She will be glad to answer any questions. 6
PLACE STAMP HERE Yahara Fishing Club Membership Form P.O. Box 3271 Madison, WI 53704 Annual Dues are from January 1 to December 31. Please print. *** ESSENTIAL Name *** If Family or Youth, Additional Names Email *** @ Street Address State Zip Phone Number and Area Code *** - - Individual $35.00 Family.. $45.00 Student.$10.00 Youth Members are free with other paid membership 7
May Events The next YFC meeting is Wednesday, May 10th, 7:00 pm at the 301 Cottage Grove Road VFW Hall. Speaker Daniel Oeleo from the WDNR Calendar of Upcoming Events. May 10, 2017, Regular club meeting. Daniel Oeleo DNR Fisheries Manager June Events June 3, 2017, Kids fishing Day at Warner Park June 14, 2017, First On The Water Meeting, 7:00 pm at Warner Park Launch Board of Directors and Officers Gard Strother, President Tom Wilke, Speakers Tex Torgeson Phil James, Vice President John Pribek, Secretary Mark Riederer Gerald King, 608-513-8573 Roger Matiasek Larry Reed Ken Terrill 608-358-0453 Jim Krause Karlette Schoen, Treasurer 8