Articles : Pewaukee

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Pewaukee (non-published)
By: Steven James Rusteberg

As with all types of fishing, muskie location becomes primary when high percentage fishing on any body of water. Location is key to your success racio as is the spacific lake that you choose to fish. Pewaukee Lake has been a lake that I have attempted to study for the past five years. Over these years I have become fairly proficient at catching a fish almost every visit to the lake. This success has not come easy however. I have spent many a day, and countless numbers of hours breaking down the secret to the Pewaukee Lake Muskie. The following article will give you a head start to overcomming your streek of fishless days out on this body of water. Remember throught this article, the key to my success has been playing the “high percentage game”. Only bet on the sure thing, not the long shots.
During the 1992 and 1993 fishing season, my fishing partner and I documented every fish we caught, and every place we fished. Lure, speed, weather, location, strike zone, and time of year were all recorded, and compiled in detail to help us become more efficent fisherman on the lake. This gave us a wrough outline. This outline is now our primary tool for giving sour mouths to the Pewaukee Lake muskie. The data we compiled contains 92 muskies on file during these two years of study.
LOCATION

Jim Dembic, one of the top fisherman on this lake, will agree that location is a primary when fishing Pewaukee. Jim averages at least sixty fish a year from this water, and is the Michael Jordan of the lake. I learned some of the top locations on this lake by watching him fish them. Staying about a half a cast from the weedline, Jim mothotically works high percentage locations. You will rarely see him on a location he hasn’t caught a fish on reciently.
When my partner and I were finished putting together the data in the winter of ‘93, some very intresting things became apparent. Yes, time of year on a specific location was important, but one of the most commonly fished weedlines on the lake was the top producer of caught fish. The “island weedline” as we called it, was the top producer of fish regaurdless of time of year. This weedline extends from the “Cottage Island” to the Nagawaukee County Boat Launch. The weedline is thickest from about 9' of water to the south shoreline, but sparatic groth will extend into 11' in mid summer. In our study 17 out of 92 fish were caught along this weed edge.
There was a tie for the second best spots on the lake. “Flag Pole to Flag Pole” is the name we gave to a bay about half way down the deeper basin of the lake. This bay is located on the south end of the lake, just before “Waukesha Beach Subdivision”. If one were to line up the two flag poles on either side of this bay, and travel parell to them, they would be just about following the weedline, hence the name. Thirteen fish out of nintytwo were caught in this bay, making it tie for second as one of the best areas to fish on the lake.
As I mentioned above another spot on the lake also took second place, this being a spot we named “Gray House Point”. This spot also was good for 13 fish out of the ninty-two in our study. This area is also know as “Auer Point”, and don’t be confused by our name. Back in the early ninties this point did have a gray boathouse on it, but since has been painted pink. “Pink House Point”, just dosen’t sound right.
In past years “Gray House Point” has not put out as many fish. This is probably due to the lack of weeds on this spot over the past few years. Weedcutter Machines have devistated this spot in the past. Mowing the green lush coontail down to stubble. I believe this has been it’s downfall, and I have spent less time fishing it.
Location on a 2,493 acre lake, is the answer to fishless days. If you spend a majority of your time on these three spots, you will score a fish in the boat before the end of the day. I feel just that confident!

THE NARROWS

A fourth excellent “high percentage” spot is the narrows between the two basins. This did not score as high as I would have liked on our study, but is now one of the top three locations I fish. I thought it necessary to devote a part of this artice to this particular spot. The narrows is a term loosly asociated to the neck of the lake that connects the shallow basin with the deeper basin. The edge where these two basins connect in 11' of water is where a majority of the larger fish are caught. This weedline (thought sparatic at times) connects with the north shoreline along Talor’s Bay and on down to the following point. When the fish are on this location, quite often you will find a wall of boats between the two basins. Don’t let this scare you off, when the fish are on the weedline there are plenty of numbers to be had by all. The massive extensive flat of the other basin allows an enormous food shelf for wandering baitfish and hungry muskies to take advantage of.

Overview of Locations

Following the advice above will catch you more fish on Pewaukee, but I must throw a monkey wrench into the works. I have found that if numbers of fish is your goal, you must fish from the second week in June, up to the second week of October. This second week of June is when the weedlines become most prodominant. If you fish before this date weed groth will not be at it’s best potential, and neither will the fishing. After the second week of October you may have the potencial to catch bigger fish, but the number of fish potencial is no longer there.
In the early spring and late fall, two areas become the best places to fish, The Narrows and the Island Weedline.

Time Of Year

Water tempture on Pewaukee determines which month becomes best for fishing the lake. I look for water temperature to be in the 65-70 degree range for best results. Unforchantly, my fishing free time doesn’t revolve around what the optimal water tempture is, so I must fish every temperature. Our study which is broken up into two years gives an excellent indication of just how muskie relate to water temperature.
Let’s start with 1992. Thoes of us that were outside during this particular year might have noticed that a majority of the year we were covered up. It was one of the worst years for a tan, simply because the air temperature rarely got above 68 degrees all summer. This was that summer that in all of your vacation photos you wore a sweatshirt or a coat. It was a cool summer to say the least, and Pewaukee’s water temperature showed this. Mid-August rolled around, and the water surface tempature was still in the high sixties. Muskie fishing was at it’s peak! The fish never left the weedline, and the open water trollers couldn’t stop complaining how bad the fishing was.The contrary was true for the casters. It seemed as if everyone on the weedlines were catching muskies, even the bluegill fisherman...... but the trollers would get their revenge!
In 1993 the trollers got their revenge. This summer turned out to be one of the hottest summers in recient years. The water temperature by the second week in June had already hit the seventies and the lake was headed for near disaster by August. The lake reached 87 degrees that year in comparison to 74 in 1992. You will see that the fishing was good untill July and then bottomed out the rest of the year. Trollers were doing well in open water, while the weedline fisherman couldn’t buy a fish. The only good thing that came out of 1993 was that I was able to fish up untill a week before Christmas on some of my favorite Illinois late fall lakes.
Two totally diffrent years of fishing and I have come to the conclusion 65-70 degree water is the optimal temperature on Pewaukee, unless you like to troll. The guy who tells you to fish just in a specific month or week has no clue what happens when water temperatures and oxygen can’t get along.

POINTS OF CONTACT

One of the most intresting things that came out of the study, was where a muskie likes to hit a lure on a cast on Pewaukee. My partner and I decided to assign six diffrent contact points a muskie would hit our lure. The decriptions are as follows; impact, first five feet, mid-retrieve, boatside, figure eight, and trolling. Keep an open mind when I cover these stastics. Two diffrent people are making a cast. Sometimes, between theses two people two diffrent lures are being used. The results of this part of the study became evident. If you are not ding a figure eight on Pewaukee Lake you may be missing as many as sixty to seventy percent of your possiable catches. My partner and I came up with basicly the same comprehensive data. Six out of every ten muskie are hitting at boatside or on a figure eight on Pewaukee Lake. Startling information? Keep in mind there were ninty-two fish in this study. This was for the most part consistant no matter what time of year or water temperature it was.
There was only one exception to this rule. The warmer the water surface temperature the deeper the figure eight needed to be. It seemed as if fish were not willing to swim in the warmer surface currents in order to hit the lure, but if it was brought to them in the cooler deeper water they would hit it without hesitation. One might argue that no mater how deep of a figure eight you do, you couldn’t be getting down to more than a degree or two cooler water. This made the diffrence (and still does) between a follow and a fish in the boat! If he won’t come up, you must go down. Several follows will tell you the mood these fish are in. Listen to what they are telling you!
One other intresting thing came from this particular information we compiled. You will notice only 6% of the fish hit on impact of the lure with the water. Out of this six percent most were contact with a hybird. In both years if a fish hit on impact it was a pike or a hybird. I would love to have a compulation of data on hybrid hits, but I simply don’t catch enough of them. The hybrid in 1992-1993 all were in the high thirty, low forty inch bracket. This was probably a year class fish that we were catching.

POINTS OF CONTACT OVERVIEW

The above study tells us that where a cast lands in the water is just as important as a good figure eight. Drawing that fish out of where it lives is the key to hooking that fish on the figure eight. Remember that if a fish hits on the impact of a cast, and has some weight behind the hookset it very posiablly could be a big hybird. Mid-retreive hit’s were present, but typically were closer to the boat than the weedline.

PEWAUKEE:FOREVER CHANGING

Since 1993 I have been documenting all my catches from Pewaukee Lake, but have not fished it as much as I did thoes two years of the study. My efforts have strayed away from catching numbers of fish, and have been consentrated on Canada and bigger fish. I still have a great respect for guys like Jim Dembic who fish it almost daily, in order to catch 60 or more fish in a year. My focus and intrests in the lake have changed. I have noticed that putting up with the high volumn of boating presure on the lake sometimes gets to me (even though it rarely afects the fishing). I have noticed a deteration over the last five years of the weedlines. Either I tore them up so much or chemicals and weedcutters have taken their toll on them (probally the second reason).
In Sepetember of 1996, I took Aaron Sands to the lake for his first time. Some of you know Aaron through his guide service on Shabbona Lake in Illinios. His first time on the lake produced a five fish day for us (44", 42", 41", 36", and 32"). Aaron got the three biggest, and you can bet all of your muskie baits it wont be the last time he fishes Pewaukee Lake. Very few lakes are as well stocked and managed in the state of Wisconson. This lake puts out more fish than many of the top Villas or Hayward lakes combine. If you fish it, fish it hard and stay on the locations I have mentioned above. Fish the lake from June 15 - October 15, during high percentage time. Watch where your cast is landing, and for God’s sake do a good figure eight after every cast.