Minocqua Area Fishing Report

Settling into the summer season. Anglers finding weed growth up and thicker than usual, most likely due to earlier heat waves. A few cool mornings and some weather has accounted for some “off” bites here and there, but overall good reports.

Northern Pike: Very Good-Good – Best working spinner baits, chatter baits and #3 & #4 Mepps over weed tops in 5-9’ of water. Chubs or suckers in the 4-6” range on jigs or under slip-floats using light wire leaders to prevent bite offs.

Musky: Very Good-Good – Reports strong with fish working same weed beds as Pike. Large spinner baits, top-water lures and 7” twitch baits ripped over weed tops. Some big fish moving in the shallows with the recent cloud cover.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good-Good – Wacky worming very effective as has been jig and creatures, tubes and Ned rigging. Evenings for top-water with Zara Spooks, Jitterbugs, plastic frogs and Whopper Ploppers providing good action and a lot of fun!

Bluegills: Very Good-Good – Small leeches, thunderbugs and worms – even small minnows entice nicer Gills of 7½-10” on larger lakes in tobacco cabbage beds of 5-8’. Tiny tubes, Mini Mites and Gapen Shrimp tipped with waxies also hot!

Crappies: Good – Typical of the summer, takes some searching casting weed tops of narrow leaf cabbage using Kalin Crappie Scrubs, #0 Mepps, small beetle spins or twitching tube jigs (1-1½” long) to locate active Crappies, then go back and set up with small minnows below floats set just below weed top level.

Smallmouth Bass: Good – Many still utilizing weed lines, hunting minnows and craws. Lipless cranks worked parallel with weed edges, tube jigs and Ned rigs working. Casting X-Raps and Shadow Raps along similar edges also producing.

Walleye: Good – Still a decent weed bite if you’re willing to fish early or late. Redtails, crawlers and leeches on 1/16-1/8 oz weedless jigs. On large lakes work depths of 14-22’ using whole crawlers of big leeches on 1/8-1/4 oz jigs on Lindy Rigs. Night bite on lighted slip-floats and leeches picking up.

Yellow Perch: Good – Anglers reporting nice “eaters” of 8-10” using medium fats or parts of crawlers in weeds of 6-10’. Cabbage, due to its wider spacing, easier to maneuver into pockets to find Perch.

Forecast of clouds for the early part of the week making fishing conditions pleasant, then sun and heat and crowds planned for the Holiday weekend, be prepared to key on early and late for your best fishing times.