Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 8/12/25

Summer just keeps on truckin’!  Temps and fishing patterns staying fairly consistent (for the most part).  A few signs of things to come and things to watch out for, but overall, a steady outlook!

Largemouth Bass:  Very Good – Action staying high as Bass feeding heavily in cabbage beds of 8-12’.  Not much they won’t respond to.  Wacky Worming can’t be beat!  Jig and 6” worms, jig and plastic craws (Bass feeding heavily on craws right now).  Top-water dusk and dawn – spinnerbaits, lipless cranks and soft jerks, it’s all good.

Smallmouth Bass:  Very Good – Seems to be more gravel/rock related, but still some coontail edge/sandgrass flat action.  Drop shotting 3” minnow or craw imitations as well as 3” Wacky Worms.  Football jigs dressed with plastic craws and of course, Ned rigs!

Bluegill:  Very Good – Very good (or bad, if you’re live baiting fishing for anything else-they seem to be everywhere).  Suspending over or just outside cabbage and coontail beds in 10-16’ of water.  Nice Gills (if you can get past the little guys).  Try upping your bait size and hook size to dissuade the small ones.  Medium leeches, larger Crappie minnows or slightly larger plastics.  Top-water action in evenings on poppers.

Yellow Perch:  Good-Very Good – Most anglers finding Perch in 7-10’ cabbage on medium fats, leeches or ½ crawlers.  Drag a Lindy rig along sandgrass flats of 14-22’ using a ½ crawler or beavertail as bait.

Crappie:  Good – Work the top 2-3 feet of tall narrow leaf cabbage with a 1/32 – 1/16 oz jig and small plastic tail.  Picking some big slabs up in surprisingly shallow weeds of 2-4’ on flowages on small chubs meant for Walleye.

Northern Pike:  Good – Working large weed flats with spinnerbaits, chatterbaits and 4” swimbaits.  Picking up some on smaller Musky bucktails and twitchbaits while Musky fishing.

Walleye:  Good-Fair – Best on deeper lakes over rock/gravel humps of 18-28’ using chubs, crawlers or leeches.  Coontail edges and sandgrass flats worth checking out.  Night time bite reported good on lighted slip-floats along cabbage edges of 10-14’.

Musky:  Fair – Not receiving a lot of reports, doesn’t mean not good.  Bucktails such as Wizards, Hunseys and Bootails.  Early and late on top-water Fat Bastards and Dr. Evils.

Most surface temps averaging 73-75 .  When air temps get into 80’s–think storm.  Forecast for coming week mostly in upper 70’s.  Saw a couple early Sugar Maples with a splash of color, timing seems right, just haven’t had much of the cold mornings just yet.

Keep watch out for Flying Ant hatch!  Good time to catch Gills up on top.

Pictures of the week

Jack Bradley of Libertyville, IL – 16” Walleye

Bronson Bridgeforth of Stevens Point, WI – 16” Largemouth Bass

Hudson Ward (8 yrs old) of Orangeville, IL - nice Largemouth caught while fishing w/ guide George MetrichPat Etherton caught a 7 1/4# Bowfin/Dogfish on a Mini Medusa