LAKE VERMILION— After a sometimes-challenging summer for anglers here, the fishing action on Lake Vermilion is suddenly hot— really hot.
“It’s as good as I can ever remember,” said Steve Krasaway, a walleye guide on Vermilion. “It was actually fairly tough up until a week ago,” Krasaway said. “Now, it’s a great time to be out on the water. We caught 47 walleyes in a four-hour trip the other day and we only fished for walleye for three of the four hours.
Krasaway said his afternoon party that same day picked up another 22 ‘eyes before calling it a day.
No one has doubted that there are plenty of walleye in Lake Vermilion, as DNR test netting has confirmed. But it’s been a confounding summer for most anglers up until recently, as an unusually drawn-out mayfly hatch and other factors made the bite highly unpredictable.
“It’s been a roller coaster of a season,” acknowledged Rob Bryers, who agrees that at least for right now, anglers are riding high. “It’s been good,” he said. “We’re getting fish and some really nice fish.”
Bryers said he also noticed the extended mayfly hatch, which kept coming up until early August.
Longtime guide Cliff Wagenbach agreed that conditions have improved remarkably. “We’ve got a good bite going,” he said, noting that his party picked up 33 walleye and kept ten in a morning of fishing. “It was the same thing yesterday,” he said.
Wagenbach is happy for the change, noting that it had been one of the toughest summers he could remember up until recently. He said he had the worst stretch he could ever recall two months ago, when he was literally skunked 3-4 times during a two-week stretch.
“The only thing I could figure is they were eating something in the shallows,” he said. “I knew the fish were there, but none of the guides could figure out where they had gone.”
Wagenbach, who prefers to fish deep water, said he had to adjust and eventually started picking up walleye in depths of five-12 feet. “Up until last week, you couldn’t catch a fish below 26 feet,” he said. Now, the fish are finally moving into deeper water, said Wagenbach, who is once again fishing in more familiar waters, ranging from 29-34 feet.
While walleye are often found in deeper water in summer on Vermilion and other area lakes, the early and unusual heat and calm days during June this year, set up a strong thermocline earlier than usual on Vermilion. With the deeper waters cut off from the better oxygenated water above, the walleye and many other fish simply avoided the deeper water for most of the summer. That’s according to Matt Hennen, the DNR’s Tower area large lake specialist. The early thermocline pushed oxygen levels below 25-30 feet down to about two parts per million, a level that isn’t fatal to fish like walleye but will leave them lethargic. Hennen said he noticed the extended mayfly hatch this summer, as well, although he wasn’t sure of the cause. But the walleye bite is typically tough during the hatch, which usually lasts no more than a few weeks.
Hennen said that the June heat may have also prompted faster growth in zooplankton, which may have fostered earlier growth in young fish of the year. While that could bode well for the 2023 year class, it could also have provided a food source earlier than usual for hungry walleye, making anglers’ baits less attractive.
“It was an unusual set of circumstances,” said Hennen.
The sudden turnaround for anglers is likely due to the breakdown of the thermocline in many places. August has been generally cooler and windier than usual, notes Hennen, which may be helping to bring oxygen back to the deeper waters, allowing walleye to move into more typical late summer haunts. Hennen said he expects that the fishing is only going to improve as the summer transitions to fall.
Even though the fishing has markedly improved, Krasaway said anglers still have to work to find the fish. He said he’s been finding them hanging around large hatches of small midges, which are happening right now. “Find out where they are hatching, and the walleye will usually be there,” he said.