Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 06/26/23

Finally, a break from the heat and straight sunshine made it to the Northwoods in the form of much needed rain, clouds and cooler temps. Following several days in a row of highs in the lower 90’s, looks like more typical Northern Wisconsin temps of upper 70’s to low 80’s. Most patterns had been off, but are now starting to solidify!

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – Early mornings and evenings usings top-water (Whopper Ploppers, Buzz Baits, plastic frogs & spiders and the classics, Jitterbugs and Hula Poppers). Mid-mornings work twitchbaits over cabbage tops (Husky Jerks, X-Raps and custom jerks from FAFO, if you can find them) as Bass seen chasing schools of bait fish along surfaces in these areas. Later in the afternoon, slide down the water/weed column using Wacky Worms, Ned Rigs and Carolina Rigs to entice bites from the plant bottoms.

Smallmouth Bass: Very Good – Working into summer patterns of deep gravel/rock during mid-day. Drop-shot 3” minnow or craw imitations. AMs finding Smallies cruising outside weed lines hitting deep running cranks (also FAFO’s) or tubes in 12-16’ edges.

Yellow Perch: Very Good – Loved the heat! Catching nice 9-12” Perch scattered through out 8-12’ cabbage on weedless jig with bait (minnows, ½ crawlers or medium leeches).

Musky: Good – Double bladed #8 bucktails, surface baits worked well for anglers fishing early and late. Shallow fish, inside weedlines and inlets. Fast retrieves during heat last week, a bit slower this coming week.

Bluegill: Good – Some reports of Gills moving in to spawn and being done in 4-5 days due to heat. Still some bedding on larger lakes. Evening shoreline casting with poppers effective. Mid-morning thru afternoons using small leeches, worms, thunderbugs and tiny tube jigs best.

Northern Pike: Good-Fair – Outside of a HUGE 44” Pike brought to net in Guide George Metrich’s boat, overall, Pike activity good to NOT great. Swimming 4” swimbaits on ¼ oz heads along 10-14’ weed edges or working spinnerbaits over cabbage of 6-8’ in the mornings working best.

Walleye: Fair – Bright, cloudless, calm days made for tough daytime bites last week. Best at dusk or early dawn using XL leeches or redtailed chubs along 10-14’ weed edges or out over rocks in 16-20’

Crappies: Fair-Poor – Been a bit of a mystery as anglers best reports are of smaller fish (7-9”) on lakes where populations are high! Fishing deeper weed edges of 12-16’ using 1/32 oz jigs tipped with Gulp Alive or small minnows.

Looks liked some rain mid-week, then nice weather for over the 4th Holiday. Should continue to see fishing moving into good predictable summer patterns for next 6 weeks until mid-August cool downs.