Minocqua Area Fishing Report
Finally something to write a report about!
Fishing picked up across the board over the weekend, with Saturdays west winds and above freezing temps bringing the best of the weeks fishing.
Yellow Perch: Very Good. Deep water anglers plying the mud flats of 20-30’ of water had good success using Halis, Pimples, Perch Talkers and VMC Chandeliers tipped with red spikes or wigglers. On lakes with less mud, but good Sand grass similar depths provided good catches with a few reports of tip-downs and small minnows also producing. On shallower lakes perch patrolling weed edges and sparsely weeded humps found good catches using VMC Flash Champs and Northland Forage Minnows tipped with minnow heads or spikes.
Northern Pike: Good-Very Good. What started out a bit slow progressively got better as the week wore on. Pike were actively feeding taking large baits (suckers, shiners) on tip-ups. Lot of heavy fish as females are feeding up to help their eggs. Lots of 25-32” fish reported over the weekend.
Bluegills: Good-Very Good. The combination of hackle, weight and a bit of meat (spikes, waxies) on this years hottest jig for gills has made VMC & Northland Jig Fly’s and Larvae jigs a must have. The gills (as well as the anglers thanks to the warm weekend) got active and anglers iced lots of fish while probing the 6-9’ weeds. A few big gills were being found cruising with perch over mud flats in 21-24’ of water – probably picking off wigglers that the perch were rooting out of the mud.
Crappies: Good. The reports from the Flowages saw an upswing as tip-down anglers had some of their best success on rosie reds. On natural lakes, tip-downs with crappie minnows accounted for some of the catch, but anglers dipping plastics and grubs did better.
Walleye: Fair-Good. Catches improved this weekend. Anglers actively jigging for walleye were successful using jigging Raps, Slender Spoons or just Forage jigs tipped with large Fatheads. The late night / all night anglers are having their best success using pike sized suckers on tip-ups on off-shore humps topping at 18-24’.
Largemouth Bass; Good. Got into the action with warm temps. Most on tip-ups baited with medium golden shiners. Lots of incidental catches by pan fishermen with jigs and waxies.
Lets hope the improved fishing is here to stay for the rest of the ice season. The game fish season ends March 6th, so we’ve only got two weekends left.
Ice thickness seems to be averaging 14-17”. There is some water on the ice in places, but snow depth and slush have not been a problem. A.T.V. & Snowmobiles traffic best, but several areas good for truck travel. Colder temps this coming weekend (highs in teens) will firm up some wet areas. Forecast is for no new precipitation this week.
Kurt Justice
Kurt’s Island Sport Shop