Minocqua Area Fishing Report

Fishing has improved along several fronts as clouds, rain and assorted weather has helped fishing.

Surface temps have cooled a little, many lakes seeing temps of 72-74 degrees, down from the upper 70’s of early last week. A few signs of a little die off on certain weeds, may be seeing a little transition away from these areas ‘til die off over.

Smallmouth Bass: Very Good – Drop-shotting 3” plastic worms, craws and minnows best. Ned rigs, though heavier jig heads needed, for deep rocks has been hot. Also, any stand up (Football style) jigs tipped with craws or skirted grubs have been hot.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – While storms have quieted bites at times, overall very good action on pre-rigged worms, spinnerbaits and shallow Shad Raps over weed tops. Wacky worming and Ned rigging TRD worms has been hot. Try small swimbaits (2 ½ - 3”) or 4” power worms on 1/8 – 1/4 swimming heads or 1/2 moon jig heads over cabbage in 6-10’. Don’t forget top-water! Whopper Ploppers, Pompador Jr’s, Tornado tails and Jitterbugs!

Musky: Good – Action picking up. Top-water best on tail baits such as Whopper Ploppers, Pacemakers, Tally Wackers. Good action on large spinnerbaits. Savage swimbaits in Bluegill and Burbot models and fast moving twitchbaits such as Cranes and jerkbaits with tails. #’s of fish in mid-30’s to low-mid 40” range.

Northern Pike: Good – Spinnerbaits, chatterbaits and swimbaits worked over and through existing green weeds of 8-14’.

Bluegill: Good – Weather took some of the gloss of this species. Still best outside coontail edges of 12-14’ suspended 4-8’ down. Try medium/small leeches, thunderbugs and worms. Small twister tails on 1/32 oz jigs or Mini-mites tipped with waxies.

Walleye: Fair – Best on overcast days or after dark. Daytime bite on crawlers, large leeches along 12-16’ weed edges or out over 14-24’ gravel humps. At night, lighted slip-bobbers suspending red-tailed chubs, black chubs or suckers of 3-5” over off-shore humps best.

Crappie: Fair – Reports vary. Best over drowned wood on flowages using medium fatheads. Try 1-2” white twister tails on 1/32 – 1/16 oz jigs heads twitched over weed tops of 8-12’.

Yellow Perch: Fair - Mostly incidental catches from anglers using 1/2 crawlers medium fats for Walleyes or Crappies.

May have some weather for early part of Labor Day holiday weekend, but as waters cool ever so slightly and water levels continue to fall on our flowages, early fall fishing should improve.