Minocqua Area Fishing Report

Couple of nasty storms brought in cooler weather and a drop in lake surface temps. Not enough for any drastic changes in fishing but far more comfortable for anglers and safer for fish being caught and released.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – The only bite that has really taken much of a hit has been the top-water bite, and that hasn’t been half bad. Favorite Bass techniques for weed fishing have all been working well with the typical Wacky Worming hard to beat. Lots of action and nice overall size.

Smallmouth Bass: Good-Very Good – Best action along outside weed edges of coontail in 14-18’. Ned Rigs tops, but drop-shotting just as effective.

Bluegill: Good-Very Good - Setting up over cabbage beds in as little as 6’ to coontail in 18’. Draw ‘em in range using a small spinner, then set up small floats with Mini-Mites, small leeches or worms.

Northern Pike: Good-Very Good – The cooler temps have helped improve the action. Working spinner baits, chatter baits across cabbage flats best. Smaller Musky glider baits also good.

Musky: Good – Anglers reporting good action on fluted buck tails, soft tailed gliders. A few anglers still doing well on suckers, keep live bait down 10-12’ to help keep these suckers alive!

Crappie: Good – Patterned up amongst the top of narrow leaf cabbage. Small beetle spins, 2” twister tails and 1/32 oz jigs with hair or tinsel producing slabs of 11-13”.

Yellow Perch: Good-Fair – Not a lot of people targeting. Those that have been noticed drop of action with cool down. Drifting Lindy rigs baited with ½ crawlers or soft shell crayfish over 16-20’ sandgrass best for larger fish (10-12”)

Walleye: Fair-Good – Deep rock humps using redtails, full crawlers or the largest leeches available. Early AM jigging cabbage flats leading to deep water effective.

The storms brought a reprieve to the hot surface temps, many of which are back into the mid-70’s after hitting highs into the mid-80’s. A little less pleasure boat traffic has put more anglers on the water.

Leeches still a low supply, high demand bait. Typical for this bait to slow down to traps as water warms too much. Hopefully this week, with its cooler temps, will bring more into the traps.