Minocqua Area Fishing Report

The fires in Canada, as bad as they’ve been, have had a small silver lining for those of us in the Northwoods. On mornings with North winds, the haze from the smoke has cut down on the sun, causing lower light levels than usual, bringing about good conditions for early morning Walleye and Crappie anglers.

Largemouth Bass: Very Good-Good – Fish cabbage beds as signs of heavy feeding on crayfish (look down their throats, you’ll see antennae sticking out). Jig and creature combos, Wacky worms and Ned rigs have been producing well. Evenings and early mornings for top-water lures.

Smallmouth Bass: Very Good-Good – Outside coontail edges using tubes and drop-shotting 3” minnow imitations. Out over rock humps, drop-shotting 3” Wackys and small craw imitations best.

Bluegills: Very Good-Good – Lots of active Gills hovering along coontail tops and edges. Easy marks with small leeches, worms suspended under floats 3-5’ down.

Northern Pike: Good – Targeting using spinner baits best. Anglers using red tail and black chubs for

Walleyes in weeds reporting good action.

Musky: Good – Best evenings and early AM on top-water baits. Work gliders and twitch baits fairly quick in warm waters of summer. Staff member Bob Weigandt boated a 45” er this week from a canoe! Boy has balance.

Crappies: Fair-Good – Found Crappies surprisingly shallow gorging on young of year Perch in 3-5’ heavy weeds. 1-2” twister tails on 1/32 oz jig worked over weed tops, surprisingly hard hits. On the same trip – same body of water, also found similar sized (10-13”) Crappies in 14-17’ relating to weed and deep weeds.

Walleye: Fair-Good – Good weed action on “smokey”, overcast mornings on red tails, crawlers. Evenings next best if you fish a day without clouds. Clouds, rain hit the weeds again.

Yellow Perch: Fair-Good – Most as incidental catches targeting Walleyes and Crappies in weeds

Forecast of mild lows (upper 50’s – low 60’s) in morning, warming sun bringing temps into 80’s followed by night showers this week won’t hurt. Cloud cover for most of weekend helpful