Minocqua Area Fishing Report

More mild like Northwoods summer weather has prevailed with temp fluctuations not so severe as to throw patterns off. This being said, not everything has been “hunky dory”, but many species are reacting well to this summer pattern.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good – The Boys (and Girls) of Summer! Mornings through afternoons in thick cabbage beds. Work swim jigs, swim baits, pre-rigged plastic worms, and spinnerbaits mid-range through cabbage of 7-12’. Not so active? Go deeper with Ned rigs, Wacky worms, and jig and creature combos. Evenings are a great time for topwater action on buzz baits, frogs, Whopper Ploppers, and jitter bugs! Lots of action and size this week!

Smallmouth Bass: Very Good/Good – While some nice fish are being found shallow (hunting in 6-8’ cabbage) for numbers work off-shore humps of 16-24’ using drop-shot rigs, football jigs with plastic craws and Ned rigs.

Bluegill: Very Good/Good – Active with water temps in the 70’s. Work deep outside weed edges to find suspending gills 6-8’ down along 16-22’ coontail using small leeches and jigs with tiny plastics. Evenings using poppers on small “ants” or sponge spiders in the shallows.

Northern Pike: Very Good/Good – Better during the early A.M. using spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, and 4” swim baits over and through 6-9” weeds.

Musky: Good – Topwater action good with evening and early mornings using loud tail baits (Whopper Ploppers and Top Raiders) followed up by more subtle top baits such as Creepers and Hawg Wobblers.

Yellow Perch: Good – Lots of perch activity in weeds on medium fatheads, leeches, and pieces of crawler. A few reports from anglers fishing deep sand grass on frozen soft shells.

Crappie: Fair – Scattered and hard to locate #’s. Small 1-2” twister tails on 1/32 – 1/16 oz jigs worked through weed tops is best

Walleye: Fair/Poor – Following reports of other mayfly hatches last week, walleye understandably slow. A few nice fish here and there but mostly smaller fish in heavy weeds in the A.M. Small chubs on ½ crawlers best.

While walleye and crappie action still off, overall other species biting better this past week. For action and fun, summer bass can’t be beat!

Kurt Justice

Kurt’s Island Sport Shop