Minocqua Area Fishing Report
If I had wrote last week’s report 8 hours later, I would have downgraded everything to poor! Thankfully bites started inching up from the pit that was last Tuesday’s cold and snow, with bites improving each day since.
Perch: Good-very good. Perch seem to be turning on as lots of anglers found these fish in waters of 8-12’ weeds in great numbers feeding on medium fatheads meant for walleyes on jigs or slip-bobber rigs. While lots of small fish must be sorted through, plenty of 8-10” perch with occasional 11-12” are being caught.
Crappies: Poor-very good. Mixed reports. This is the species (beside musky for the opener) that most people target on Memorial Day weekend. Must say, results were all over the board. Some anglers found great success finding crappies that committed to spawning in the shallows. On a lot of lakes, crappies that got pushed out due to the cold last week seemed to be out of the dating game. Female crappies with undelivered eggs were being caught in 12-15’ depths with eggs showing signs of being past spawning phase and will be reabsorbed over the summer. With the cooler temps (55-60 degrees) over the weekend, minnows seemed to work best.
Musky: Fair-good. Not a lot of reports in as of yet on catches, but, good numbers of raised fish. It could have been the pressure, the nice weather brought out a lot of anglers.
Walleyes: Fair-Good. Oddly enough, afternoons and evenings out did mornings as walleyes responded better as the temperatures rose. Early in the week, deeper water was best as in 12-16’ depths. As the weekend progressed, fish moved onto shallow flats of 6-10’ taking dace, fatheads and redtails on 1/16oz weedless jigs.
Pike: Good. They got more aggressive as the week moved on. Jigs with spinners tipped with chubs or mud minnow as well as #3 Mepps in the same 6-10’ flats as the walleyes were feeding. Also paddle tail grubs on 3/8oz jig heads worked over weed tops.
Largemouth: Fair-goo. Action is improving as water warms. While a few reports on top-water, the majority of action sub-surface on tube jigs and wacky worms.
Smallmouth: Fair. Season still catch and release only. Use x-raps in 8-12’ of water adjacent to small gravel/sand shorelines for these pre-spawning fish.
Bluegill: Fair. Cooler temps pushed this species out of shallows in many areas. Anglers fishing thunderbugs and small leeches had some success in 10-14’.
Bluegill bite will get better as waters warm this week, a couple of days in the 80’s mid week will shoot temps up nicely into mid to upper 60’s. Saturday’s forecast of a drop into the upper 50’s/low 60’s could hurt, but, warmer weather returning should put us on track for an improvement in fishing.
Kurt
Island Sportshop
Minocqua, Wi 54548