Lake Geneva Fishing Report 10/15/13 through 10/31/13
With an extremely warm fall so far, Lake Geneva is far from turning over. The coldest I’ve seen the water this year is 66 degrees.
Smallmouth bass fishing has been good. The fish remain on deep main lake points in 22-28 ft of water. The best approach is either drop shotting Berkeley Plastics or Lindy rigging extra large fat head minnows. It’s really easy with my Hummingbird fish graph to locate the active schools of fish. If I’m not marking any, I’ll move on until I find them. As a rule, once the water cools the mirror shiners of Lake Geneva start to get in tight schools and the smallmouth bass are typically right underneath feeding on them. You can catch smallmouth with top water lures this time of year if you find one of these pods of minnows. I had several times last week where I had actively feeding smallmouth bass on the surface in over 40 ft of water. I caught a few on small chrome and blue jerk baits.
Northerns are starting to move shallower as the water cools. I’m starting to catch several fish in the 21-25 ft depth range. The best location has been by Gage Marine or by Yerkes Observatory. The best approach is medium lindy rigged suckers. I prefer a 2 ft leader on the lindy rig. As the fish move shallower, I will switch from lindy rigs to slip bobbers once the fish get under 15 ft of water.
Walleyes are still being caught at night while trolling medium diving crank baits in 15 ft of water. The best location is by Abbey Springs and in front of the old Military Academy. Like summer, wind is the key to success. When there is a slight chop the fish seem to bite better.
Yellow Perch action has been excellent in the 10-12 ft depth range. As always on Lake Geneva, you need to sort through a bunch to get the good size. The best location is by Conference Point, Black Point and Knollwood. Slip bobber rigged small fat head minnows are producing most of the success. The bite will be consistent throughout the fall.
Good luck and I hope to see you on the water. For guide parties, please call Dave Duwe at 608-883-2050
Daily Reports
10/12/13 - Lake Geneva, cloudy, 60 degrees, S winds at 15 mph, water temp 67 degrees. Caught 10 smallmouth bass, 5 were legal and one largemouth. Compared to yesterday, today was slow. Some of the best spots from the previous day were unfishable due to the strong winds. Had to stay out for 5 hours to catch the 10 smallmouth. All fish were caught on fat head minnows.
10/11/13 - Lake Geneva, sunny, 65 degrees, light winds out of the SW, water temp 67 degrees. Caught 15 smallmouth bass, 2 were over 18 inches and a 33 inch northern pike. The fish were caught on lindy rigged fat head minnows in 22-28 ft of water. The best location was by Yerkes Observatory.
10/9/13 - Delavan Lake, sunny, 75 degrees, light winds out of the SW, water temp 68 degrees. Caught 2 largemouth bass and one crappie. I fished shallow, I fished deep and marked a whole bunch of fish but couldn't get them to bite. The lake was covered in a huge algae bloom.
10/07/13- Lake Geneva,sunny,55 degrees, NW wind at 15 mph. Water temp 66 degrees. Caught 8 Smallmouth and 2 largemouth (small). Today the cold weather was a bit brutal. Fishing was rater slow. All fish were caught on extra large fathead minnows on lindy rigging. We caught a fish here and there. Best depth was 21-25 feet of water.