Wisconsin, Lake Wisconsin, Jigging - Walleye Fishing Report at IDOfishing.com

Mike Benthause 22" Hawg
Sauger

The fall sauger & walleye bite on Lake Wisconsin did improve considerably last week.
We actually had some very good days on the water mixed in with several others that were just okay or maybe a tad bit on the good side.
There is a bit of bad news that goes with that good news though, due to warm weather an increasing water temperatures, the bite was going downhill fast by Sunday afternoon.

Jason Romanyk's 22-3/4"
sauger

Our best overall bait last week was a 1/4oz B'Fish'N Tackle Orange Tiger Glow Precision Jig tipped with an extra large fathead minnow. The big saugers definitely had a taste for meat last week. Late Sunday afternoon was the only time when another jig color actually outfished the Orange Tiger Glow and that happened when Art Green put one pig sauger and a couple other keeper size fish in the boat using a 1/4oz Sunburst Precision jig tipped with the same extra large fathead minnow.
Our second best bait was a 1/2oz blade bait. There was no one specific color that out shined all others. We caught good fish on no less than six different colored blades.

26" blade bait walleye

The blade bite takes a lot of persistence. You can spend a lot of time jerking that blade around with no results and then out of the blue, "POW" fish on! Usually right about the time if felt like you're arm was going to fall off.
Early in the morning definitely seemed to be the best time to vertically jig a blade bait but they did also produce at other times of the day. The middle of the day was by far the hardest time to entice a bite on any lure regardless of what it was.
We did find a few fish willing to chase crankbaits behind lead core from time to time but it was inconsistent from one day to the next. Sunday was probably our best day pulling lead.

Art Green's 21-1/2"
lead core sauger

Baitfish on the sonar screen was the common denominator for finding these big saugers. If you didn't see fairly large schools of baitfish in the area, then you may as well keep looking before dropping a line.
Our best overall depth's were 20' on the shallow side and 25' on the deep side. Shallower was definitely better early & late in the day. There were actually a few times where we found some active fish moving up into that 20' zone during the middle of the day but for the most part, the baitfish and the better saugers both moved deeper during the brightest times of the day.
The bad news is this, with the warmer weather that we had on Saturday & Sunday, the baitfish schools were breaking up and spreading out over larger areas. To me, it certainly looked like the saugers & walleyes were doing the same thing and as a result, the bite kept getting tougher & tougher as the water temps continued to climb.