Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 5/27/25

Weather was on the brisk side (lows in the 30’s) for the Memorial Day Weekend. The cold mornings taking its toll on the early rising anglers. Things improved somewhat by late morning through to the evening hours. Yet fishing overall was tough by most accounts.

Had higher hopes for the weekend. If you had tough fishing, you weren’t alone. If you didn’t get to fish cause of honey-do lists – you didn’t miss much. Now, hopefully you’re free to enjoy the rest of the season.

Crappie: Fair – Most out in weeds of 8-12’ this past week. Casting 2-3” swimbaits, small tubes, to locate fish. Few lakes have Crappies committed to beds. Can still happen on larger lakes, but in some cases, Crappies have missed the “window”. Don’t be surprised to find Crappies this simmer “reabsorbing” their spawn. Still provided the most action of the holiday weekend.

Northern Pike: Fair – Even the “Good” live bait bite on Saturday (5/24) shut down by Sunday. Still a few nice Pike working jig/chub combos slowly through the weeds. Bites light (for Pike). Heavy weeds in 8-12’. Some action on 4” plastic swimbaits on 1/8 oz heads fished, hopped through dense cover.

Largemouth Bass: Fair – Still feeding in heavy weed cover. Have to fish weedless to get down to entice bites from reluctant fish. Jig/Craw imitations, weedless Wacky rigs, Carolina rigging, 4” plastic worms. Some nice, hefty fish over the weekend. Topped off by young Charlotte (10 yo), 20 ¼” catch, “cringe” and release!

Walleye: Fair – Early mornings? Shoulda stayed in bed! Better late mornings through early evenings as temps warmed. S.L.O.W. dragging red tails through 10-12’ weeds. Bites light. Some on slip-floats with medium leeches.

Musky: Fair – Oddly, better reports from further north, Presque Isle area, for actual boating fish. Small bucktails and 5” twitchbaits in shallow weeds starting mid-morning. Otherwise, most reports from anglers seeing a few reluctant followers.

Yellow Perch: Fair – Not many reports, one of some flowage Perch taking small pieces of crawler (lets you know how reluctant that bite was). Otherwise, a few scattered catches in weeds. Bite off, but should pick up. Did get one other decent report from a pair of anglers using thunderbugs to pick up a decent catch of “keepers” in 6-8’ cabbage.

Smallmouth Bass: Fair – Most staying outside spawning shorelines. Tubes, 3” Kietech swimbaits, dragging Ned rigs picking up some action. As water returns into upper 50’s-low 60’s (which it’s doing as of this writing.)

Bluegill: Fair – Afternoons and early evenings as bug hatches bringing fish up. Most reports from anglers fishing off docks using leaf worms, waxies or thunderbugs.

The loss of about 10-degree surface temps (53–55-degree avg) in the past 10 days surely hurt. Good news is, from here on out the forecast improves, bringing lake temps back up, slowly but surely.

Pictures of the week

Fished this weekend with Charlotte (10 yo), Aubrey (11 yo) and Elsie (13 yo)

Charlotte caught an 18 1/2" Walleye and a 20 1/4" Largemouth (C&R)

Aubrey caught a 14" Largemouth (C&R)

Elsie caught a 28 1/2" Pike