Minocqua Area Fishing Report

Lots of heat plus the Birthday of our Country put fishing on the back burner a bit this past week. Temps in the 90’s brought lake surface temps soaring into the low-mid 80’s. Mid-day fishing was nearly out of the question. Yet anglers who ventured out early and late had good reports.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – Dominating the cabbage bed actions, morning Bass taking creature baits, Sweet Beavers, 5” Wacky Worms. Pre-rigged plastic worms, spinner baits, chatter baits and swim baits all getting their fair share. Evening anglers working surface baits doing extremely well. (a 23 1/2” C&R verified this past week)

Bluegill: Very Good – While I thought all were done bedding, I found still some on larger lakes. Small leeches last long on hooks. Mini Mite jigs tipped with waxies and poppers on fly rods or behind clear floats excellent way to have exciting fun in evenings.

Smallmouth Bass: Good – Working along coontail edges using Ned Rigs or drop-shotting 3” Gulp Minnows. Counting down lipless cranks, along same edges also effective.

Walleye: Good – Early, late or just before fronts. Leeches, crawlers and Red tails (though hard to keep alive in heat). Early mornings work 8-12’ cabbage. Evenings along coontail edges in 14-20’. Guide reported 3 C&R Eyes of 26 ½” - 27 ½” in recent outing.

Northern Pike: Good – Best during cooler times of day. Boonie Baits, Chatter baits, silver minnows. Work those cabbage beds. Once heat of morning comes, move out to outside edges, pitch twitch baits.

Musky: Good – Been seeing best action during days outside weed edges of 10-18’ using Phantom soft tails and Smity Sm Jerks w/ tails. Evenings/Early AM go top water with noisy Whopper Ploppers, Bucher Top Raiders.

Crappie: Good-Fair – Some surprisingly shallow Crappies being caught using 2” twister tails in 4-6’. Other reports have anglers locating Crappies deeper by pilings and drowned wood in 12-18’ suspending 3-4’ off bottom.

Yellow Perch: Good – Moving to some deeper sand grass on larger lakes, wood on flowages. Offer frozen soft shells or ½ crawlers on jigs or Lindy Rigs.

Due to high surface temps, be careful playing fish. Get ‘em in and back out quickly. Surface temps in 80’s hard on fish, keep live wells running or ice in coolers to keep catch you decide to keep from spoiling.