Minoqua Area Fishing Report

Running into a hot summer at this point. Daytime highs in the mid to upper 80’s pushing lake surface temps from mid 70’s to low 80’s (Ouch!)

Patterns are starting to develop for many species, with the stable (but hot) weather helping things along.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – Pick your style, these Bass are more than happy to cooperate. Early morning twitch stickbaits such as Rattlin Rouges, Thundersticks or X-Raps between shore and inside weed edges. Mid-morning through mid-afternoon hit the weeds with Wacky worms, Ned rigs and Neko Rigs. At dusk, go to top-water using Whopper Ploppers, Spooks, and plastic frogs (Lunker Hunt, BOOYAH, and Keara Frogs)! Big Bass (for our area) over 22” this past week!

Bluegill: Very Good – Best to use small leeches as they stay tough on the hook. Evening anglers having fun on poppers. Depending on lake depth, most of the better daytime Gills are being caught in deeper cabbage of 8-12’.

Yellow Perch: Good-Very Good – Better fish (9-11”+) found in deeper weeds. Deep wood is also favored as these fish love to eat crayfish. ½ crawlers, frozen soft shells, medium leeches and medium fatheads all working well. Preference has been on brown, orange jigs.

Northern Pike: Good – Best casting weed flats using chatterbaits, spinnerbaits. Chubs and suckers working along deep weed edges for the larger Pike (30-38” reported this week).

Smallmouth Bass: Good – Drop shot Jackall Crosstail shad, 3” Senkos and 3” Gulp Power Minnows over gravel humps of 18-30’, sandgrass flats of 17-25’ and deep coontail edges of 14-18’. XL leeches and frozen soft shells for the live baiters.

Crappie: Fair-Good – Search out tall narrow leaf cabbage. Work tops using Charlie Bees, Beetle Spins, VMC Boottail jigs or Gapen Freshwater Shrimp. 1 ½” tubes and Mini Mites also working. If fish not up high on weeds, go deeper using 1/32 oz jigs to get scented plastics like Impulse or Power Bait Nymphs down to suspended fish 4-6’ off bottom in 12-18’.

Musky: Fair+ – Best bets on bucktails and larger spinnerbaits. Top water producing and should be doing much better. Later, towards evening, best.

Walleye: Fair+ - Some of the standards not producing like we would like them to. Still, anglers jigging and slip-bobber fishing with XL leeches and crawlers finding Walleyes in weeds early in morning and late evenings to after dark. Some deep rock bites occurring mid-day in 22-30’. Casting 3-4” swimbaits (Keitechs, 360GT) producing early and late in weeds of 7-10’.

With the stable weather and new moon coming up, should be a good week ahead. Mid-day temps may be too much to fish, so pick your early and late times to stay out of heat and away from traffic.