Kurt's Island Sport Shop

Beautiful week of weather, could have used some more rain, but… With the warmth, water temps climbing into mid-70’s already, pushing fish out of the late May patterns and into early summer a bit ahead of schedule. Expect bites from last week starting to shift this coming week. Smallmouth Bass: Very Good-Good – Anglers reporting fewer bedding fish than last week. Temps speeding up the spawn. Post spawn Smallies outside spawning areas hitting suspending jerks (Husky, X-Ra

A beautiful week for fishing, a couple days of east winds shy of a perfect week. Overall, fishing was good and looking forward, no reason to think it won’t remain so with steady temps in the upper 70’s to low 80’s forecasted all week. Smallmouth Bass: Excellent-Very Good – Many bedding fish, some already done due to warm temps. Top-water action hot on Chug Bugs, Tiny Torpedoes. Urchin style baits have been the rage as well as Senko’s, Neds, Yum Breakin Shad and Flukes.

What a great Memorial Day Weekend! Lots of sun, warmth and good fishing! Anglers saw plenty of opportunities to pursue and catch their favorite fish. Weather made fishing comfortable for a change, HWY 51 was open, life in the Northwoods is Good! Rock Bass: Off the Charts! – When three families of visitors to the Northwoods from the Kentucky (Louisville) area, with seven kids ages 3 to 8 can catch and release over 250 Rock Bass in a day (in shifts) of fishing…enough said!

Our bouncing weather pattern finally bounced right for once giving anglers summer like temps Fri:Sat (80°) though winds were somewhat brutal. Sunday came back cold and windy, though less windy than Saturday. The sudden warmth brought fish activity and lots of good reports for those wearing sunscreen and fighting the wind! Walleye: Good-Great-Good – The hot weather created a hot bite as water temps climbed quickly into upper 50’s and anglers reported hard hits on swimbait

Not the easiest week weather wise. Cold and high winds have kept lake surface temperatures hovering in the upper 40’s to low 50’s. New weed growth has been limited along with all the goodies that come with! Northern Pike: Good – Cruising amongst any signs of new weed growth in 4-8’ of water. Slowly working a black chub on a 1/16-1/8 oz weedless jig has been best as Pike not overly aggressive. Three-inch paddle tail swimbaits or twister tails fished in same manner also

And they’re off! The 2026 Walleye opener is in the books. A bit of a soft opener overall with participation somewhat down (with the exception of the usual “gathering” places). Reports varied depending on what lakes/flowages people fished. The cold opening morning (23° around Minocqua) did not help. Lake surface temps had been hovering around 48-49° but rebounded with warmer afternoons pushing temps into low-mid 50’s. Most reports show signs that Walleye are past spawn i

The 2026 Opener is just days away, May 2nd! Area lakes and Flowages are ice free and ready to fish. The Walleye spawn is different from lake to lake. Pre-spawn and spawning Walleye will be found on the larger, deeper, colder lakes, and some spawning still on large lakes further north. For the most part we should see plenty of post-spawn activity this opener. The barely warm up, mostly highs in the mid-40’s to mid-50’s this week, will slow down the lakes warming and stret

Not much to report on the fishing front. Ice is nearly all gone from the Lakeland area lakes, while reports of some ice on lakes further North (they did get new snow from Marenisco to Boulder Junction on Sunday 4/19). Most landings are open and the few still with ice should be freeing up with mid-week temps in the mid-70’s and rain on Friday (4/24). Cool temps the following week leading up to opener (5/2- just 13 days away) with low temps in the 30’s and highs in mid-50’

Ice out is only days away. The pond behind the shop is halfway open and probably by the end of the day will all be open water. Rain along with 60°+ days forecasted this week will bring ice fishing to an end, if it hasn’t already. No fishing reports to share this week, just nobody fishing. Our April line sale is still going on thru the 26 th of the month. Now’s the time to spool up and save.

Ice fishing looks to be coming to an end. This past week with ice, heavy wet snow and wind really took its toll on ice conditions. Northern shorelines are deteriorating fast and ice, where one can get out, is very sloppy. Warmer weather and rain in the next few days will make it even more difficult for one to safely get out. Very few people going out and in turn, very few reports on fishing. The few anglers I talked to said one had to work to get fish. The weather front