I have been wanting to fish Potholes the entire fall and finally got the opportunity at the end of October. My coworker Ryan and I made a day trip on a cloudy and damp day. Ryan got a taste of walleye fishing this spring and was anxious to give it another try. He seems to be a natural born fisherman. Within 20 minutes on the water, he brought a fat 24.5 inch walleye into the boat. By the end of the day, we kept 8 walleyes (mostly 16-22 inches) and 12 large perch. The water temperature was 55 degrees. Sky overcast and very little wind.

More info: After reading some recent reports on Washington Lakes, we boated to the mouth of Crab Creek on the north side of the lake. I put a couple crankbaits on my rods and I gave Ryan a large perch colored spinner on a 2 ounce bouncer. We spent the first 2 hours trolling between 1.5 and 2 mph from the mouth of Crab Creek and over the Dunes. Ryan's spinner was getting more bites than my crankbaits so I switched to perch spinners as well. We returned to mouth of Crab Creek and focused on the humps near the mouth of the creek adjacent to deep water. Most of our walleyes were caught in 12 to 20 feet of water. The perch were a bit deeper in 18 to 25 feet of water. Trolling speed was 1.3 to 1.5 feet. Perch are efficient bait steelers, so we used half a crawler and pinched it right at the second hook. The small offering of worm did not deter bites from walleye. We caught a 20, 21 and 22 inch fish with a very small piece of crawler behind size 4 and 5 spinners.

Ryan and Greg: Potholes - 10/30