06/12/2026
Master’s Walleye Circuit Tournament Recap
Nitro Wisconsin State Pro Team Member Jeremy Bock
On Friday and Saturday, June 5 & 6, \my son Anderson and I fished the Master’s Walleye Circuit event on Lake Winnebago. This is a no-cull event, and you are allowed 6 fish in the livewell, and you weigh your best 5. Once they go in the livewell they can’t come out as it is a no cull event so making the right decisions on what to keep is critical.
We had three days of practice and had a couple spots that were consistently producing quality fish. One was in the mud off Oshkosh in both 13-14 feet of water and also 18-19 feet of water. The other program that was working for us was trolling crankbaits over shallow rocks humps and point of reefs.
Day one we started in the mud off Oshkosh and after 90 minutes we only had a few small fish and decided to make a move to the north. We made a trolling pass in the mud and boxed a healthy 18.5 inch fish. After another pass with no fish we decided to go shallow on rocks as there was good wind and cloudy skies. Our first pass we had a triple and boxed a 20.5. and 15 minutes later we put a 21.5 in the boat. We continue to have multiple doubles and another triple and by 11:30Am had 5 in the livewell. We didn’t have to be in until 3:30Pm so we had four hours to get one big fish and it just didn’t happen. We lost one good one and continue to catch 17-18 inch fish all day. We weighed 12lbs 10 ox and were in 19th place out of 89 boats sitting 1lb out of 10th and 2lbs out of the top 5. Good position going into day 2.
Day two we were met with high skies, no wind and tons of fishing pressure on our area. We lost a dandy walleye early and then I had a bad next job and knocked one off at the back of the boat with the net. We switched to the mud and pulled spinners with crawlers and caught an 18.5 in the first 5 minutes. We were able to only catch small fish in the mud and at 2:15 Pm decided to give our shallow rocks a try as the wind created a small ripple on the water. In the first 20 minutes we caught three 18.5s and put them in the livewell. We lost one re3ally good fish and just ran out of time. We came in with only 4 fish and weighed 7lbs. We finished in 40th place.
Over the three days of practice and two tournament days we caught over 140 walleyes. The Bago system is extremely healthy, and you can catch them casting, trolling or jigging. We caught our fish trolling #7 Flicker minnows in the mud and Hornets on the shallow rocks. Our teammates were in the mud near us, and one had 14lbs and the other 16lbs doing our same program so it just takes running into the right school of fish and often small moves for different passes can make a significant difference. The fishing should continue to be great!
In the end it was a great tournament with my son Anderson who is 15. He started fishing tournaments with me at age 12 and is a great angler. We had a wonderful time together and memories were made that will last forever.