May & October are my favorite months living in the Driftless.Harvesting nature’s bounty is pretty much easy any place you venture.

River levels now are great and should be at the near perfect level; 2 ft. below action stage–by next weekend. Water temps have warmed to the solid mid-60s.

Submergent vegetation in backwaters and running sloughs is becoming emergent. Time to break out topwater bait for bass, Pike and WALLEYES.

With high ambient temps in the low 80s and no rain in the forecast for the coming week crappies and bass should be seriously spawning by may 18–pretty much right on schedule based on the past 10 yrs.

There is an incredible forage base of 3″ shad in the system right now. Last week a #5 chrome Flicker shad was the hot biat, pulling a current seam in 7-9 fow @ 1.5-2.0 mph. My client boated 22 walleye/sauger in just a couple hours. he kept four fish, I kept a couple 13″ sauger for lunch. One of these fish had THREE shad the EXACT size and color of the #5 flicker shad in its belly.

On subsequent trips this lure has produced walleye consistently up to 22″, some handing suspended 6′ down over 11-13 fow.

The only thing which is discouraging is a cost of $8.25 per lure at Walmart–for a stinkin’ flicker shad!

The outrageous prices for vehicles, watercraft and fishing gear is not sustainable. When we reach a point in the not too distant future where the average guy can’t afford to go fishin’ life as we’ve known it in the USA is over.

In the meantime, I hope to be out there catchin’ just about every day, getting back to fishin’ when serious summer arrives in a couple of weeks.