“Catching Muskies, Walleyes and Panfish at Wisconsin’s Eagle River Chain of Lakes with Jim ‘Hi Pines’ Rechlitz and Mepps and Mister Twister”

Part 4: Walleyes and Perch

Editor’s Note: Jim ‘Hi Pines’ Rechlitz is the owner of Hi Pines Guide Service in Eagle River, Wisconsin, and an officer in the Headwater Chapter 12 of Muskies, Inc. He guides primarily for muskie and walleye as well as panfish and smallmouth bass on the Eagle River chain of lakes in northern Wisconsin.

Question: How are you rigging to catch walleyes?

Rechlitz: I fish with several different types of rods and reels. There’s a custom rod maker here who builds some of my rods, and I also use All Star rods. I like to fish a 6-foot medium-action rod with 6-pound-test line and usually a 1/16- or a 1/8-ounce jig throughout most of the year. Most of the time, I’ll tip my Mister Twister Curly Tail Grub with a fathead minnow.

Question: What’s the average-size walleye you catch in your area?

Rechlitz: We catch a lot of walleyes in the 12- to 14-inch size, but we do have a slot limit here on the Eagle River chain of lakes. All of the walleyes 14- to 18-inches long have to be released. We believe these are our breeding-sized walleyes, and we want to keep them in the lakes. We do catch some 18-1/2- to 24-inch walleyes. We catch very-few walleyes that are more than 24- or 25-inches long. Walleyes in this area grow very slowly, as do muskies.

Question: In a day of fishing, most of the walleyes your customers catch will be 10- to 14-inches long, right?

Rechlitz: That’s right. We can keep that size walleye. But the 14 to 18 inchers we have to throw back. Usually when we’re fishing for the walleye, we catch a lot of perch too. We have a tremendous number of perch here on the Eagle River chain.

Question: How much will an 18-inch walleye in your region weigh?

Rechlitz: It will weigh 3 to 3-1/2-pounds, which is a really-nice walleye. A 24-inch walleye will weigh 3-1/2- to 5 pounds, and a 28-inch walleye will weight about 8 pounds. Although we may catch 20 to 40 walleye in a day, anglers are only allowed to keep three per person. So if I have three people fishing, we can keep nine walleyes. If we have a lot of action in a day of fishing, we do a lot of catch-and-release fishing.

To fish with Jim ‘Hi Pines’ Rechlitz, call (715) 479-6113, email hipines@hipines.com or hipines@newnorth.net, or visit www.hipines.com.