Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 10/6/25

Broke into October with more of the same from our warm September.  Air temps to mid-80’s pushing surface temperatures back up into the upper 60’s by afternoons.  That may change with forecast (yeah, bad word) showing highs in low 60’s for coming week, holding our breath.

Northern Pike:  Good – Finding on wind blown shores where small panfish and minnows stacking up.  Good action on spinnerbaits, swimbaits and jig/chubs combos.  Keep moving until you find them concentrated with Largemouth Bass in the mix.

Largemouth Bass:  Good – See above!  Seem to be actively chasing bait fish stacked up from the wind.  Fun, active bite on high riding artificials, competitive fish not picky, just keep the bait moving.

Crappie:  Good – Tough to stay on in wind, but when able to and you hit the “bite” window, nice Crappies taking medium fatheads under floats or small 1 1/2-2” swim plastics pitched on 1/16 oz jig heads in 12-18’ of water over wood.  Some reports along windy weed lines of 8-12’.

Smallmouth Bass:  Good-Fair – Deep sandgrass flats of 14-18’ and drop-off along rocky edges.  Drop-shotting with heavy 3/8 – 5/8 weights to hold in wind best.

Bluegill:  Fair – Wind playing havoc.  Nice Gills to 10”, but tough to fish.  Try bass technique of drop-shotting use 1/2-1/3 crawler for bait.

Musky:  Fair – Some decent showings on bucktails (Hunsey, Bootails, Wizards) picking up smaller fish.  Sucker bite still off – watch for water temps to fall by week’s end.

Walleye: Fair – Some better action early in week when weather allowed better boat control.  Reports from Eyes in 3-5’ weeds to as deep as 35 gravel/mud transitions.  Lake type important.  Waiting for cool!

Yellow Perch:  Fair – Few scattered fish.  Like Walleye – some shallow, wind-blown weeds in 3-5’, others over sandgrass or mud in 18-24’.

Looks (which many times are deceiving) like we can finally see some surface temps where we would like to get the Musky and Walleye bite going.  Moving away from full moon period should help.  Once temps fall below the low-60 – upper-50° mark, expect the sucker bite to turn on!

Pictures of the week

Bradley (7yo) of Three Lakes with his first ever Northern Pike (25 ½”)

Geri Koch of St. Germain with a nice Largemouth

Judi Brenzing of Chicago had a great day

-a chunky Smallmouth

-a fat 15 ½” Largemouth

-and a 25 ½” Northern Pike