Wednesday afternoon marked beautifull tempuratures and sunny skies. I decided to take a trip to the Southern End of Green Bay near "University Bay".
Upon arrival I found surface temps pushing 60 degrees so I changed gears from my enitial thought of crankbaits and switched 3 of my rods over to crawler harnesses. After trolling for about 15 minutes I was battling the first fish, a 25 inch female. As the day wore on and more fish were responding to the crawler harness presentation the wind decided to pick up out of the south-southeast. This immediatly began to effect the water temp as the surface temp began to drop quite quickly. I decided to run up to "Eagles Nest" as I was sure that the warmer water was getting pushed North. Upon arrival to "Eagles Nest" I found that the warm water was there but the lack of bites after two passes pushed me back down to the southern end of the bay.
After just an hour and a half the water temp dropped 4 degrees in "University Bay". This made me realize that the water below the surface was quite cooler than the surface temps, so after picking up my good friend at the dock we decided to change back over to crank baits. After changing back over we saw an immediate response. We actually did quite well, boating a good number of fish with a good diversity of Jumbo Perch, Walleyes, Sheephead, Northern Pike, and even a couple Muskies.
Our best baits were Reef Runner Little Rippers, run about 35-55 feet behind our Offshore Planer Boards. We were focusing on trolling 1.3-1.5 mph. The name of the game was to stay versitile, this is a transition period for these fish. The bite can change this time of year in a matter of minutes so be sure to have multiple presentations available to change with the fish.
