Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 1/27/26

Fishing report!?  Please!

With morning temps of 27-33° BELOW ZERO (colder in some lower elevations) not including wind chills to 57 ° below, not many anglers brave (or kooky) enough to go drill holes and “freeze” a line.  Fishing had been relatively good until the big FREEZE arrived.  Actually, the lack of wind on Saturday and Sunday had a few anglers checking things out.

Bluegill:  Very Good-Fair – Not usually a good choice for super cold.  Yet a few anglers with permanent shacks found some nice Gills to 9” biting on Sat/Sun in 20’ of water.  Prior to that it was a 12-14’ bite when mobility was better just outside weeds over mud.

Yellow Perch:  Very Good-Fair – Similar to Gills.  Deeper water (20-30’) following shallower (13-18’) before cold blast.  Wigglers or spikes on gold Flash Champs and chartreuse Rattlin’ Roaches producing good numbers of 7 ½-9” Perch.  Slowed way down with cold.  But a few nice Perch coaxed to bite over weekend

Crappie:  Good-Fair – Once again, if you had shelter and could wait out schools to move, anglers were picking up some Crappies.  For the most part, very reluctant action on small tungsten jigs tipped with waxies or spikes, but bite slow.

Northern Pike:  Fair-Poor - Not great tip-up weather.  Some Pike earlier in week.  But for the most part that shut down.

Walleye:  Fair-Poor – Anglers picked up fish early.  But unless they could shack up, hard to keep tip-up holes open enough to fish.  Better days to come.

Largemouth Bass:  Poor – These fish don’t respond well when air under 20°, let alone 50° colder.

So we lost a weekend of ice fishing, not good.  On the bright side the ice season should extend longer into March, maybe April as thickness from reports getting into upper 20” (27-29”) range.  Truck travel good.  We are expecting lows from negative single digits to negative teens this week, with highs in single digits.  Weekend forecast of highs in mid-teens to low 20’s to make things more bearable.  Easy stuff over for a bit, but it’s ice fishing, not for the week of heart.

Pics of the week

Paxton, 9 years old, with a WHOPPER 14 1/2" Crappie

Chuck Stroik with a 37" Northern Pike

Logan Lee with a surprise caught and released Musky

Ice Fishing Tournaments

February 7^th – 16^th Annual Mohr’s Ice Fishing Contest – Spirit Lake

February 14^th – 25^th Annual Plum Lake Ice Fishing Tournament (Sponsored by Sayner-Star Lake Lions)