Minocqua area fishing report
Ice fishing season continues to shrink along with it’s most important ingredient..ice. Fewer places are accessible everyday with a forecast of heavy rain for Wednesday (3/30) even the forecast for nighttime temps in the teens forFriday/Saturday (4/1 and 4/2) may not be enough to give the hard water anglers safe footing for the weekend. Keep an eye on our website fishing report for further details.
Crappies: Good-Very good. At times the bite is relegated to early morning and evenings. But with the south end of Big Arb reporting 14-15” on Monday (3/28), most of the fishing pressure in this area is on the very protected south shore. Tip-downs with minnows as well as slow dropping plastics and spikes has been effective. Work from just under the ice to the bottom to find where fish want offerings. Some true slabs of 13-15” being caught, though majority of reports are 10-11”.
Bluegills: Good-very good. Gills active, preferring darker plastics (purple has been hot). Mostly shallower than crappies (6-8’ vs 10-12’) but also tending to move more up and down the water column. Moussees have been hottest live bait.
Perch: Good. Not as many reports as deep water tougher to access and more of the gravid (egg bearing) females migrating to shallower weedy cover as ice thickness lessens. These fish will eat, so feed them a big meal of wigglers, medium fatheads of several waxies on a minnow shaped jig.
The pond behind our shop looks to be about 30% open as of 3/29 morning. Traditionally 7-10 days after the pond goes ice free, Minocqua Lake will be ice free. No one is fishing west side of Lake Minocqua. Use caution anywhere you go.
Kurt Justice
Kurt’s Island Sport Shop