Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, late summer weather is holding out as long as it can, and really it’s going to stay pretty warm for as long as the forecast shows. The weekend shows upper 70s and a decent cold front comes in on Tuesday, however we stay in the mid to upper 60s from then on. The weather also looks very dry throughout that forecast too which is not helping things. Water temps are dropping into the mid 60s overnight and up to near 70 in the afternoons. Water levels are okay on some lakes and down on others so be mindful of lower units and props when on the water! Those are going to hold for a while with this weather pattern, and it has been tough fishing because of it.
Musky–The musky bite has slowed way down and this weather pattern is the main cause. Lots of anglers trying, lots of fish lazily following baits and not eating. Only a few fish on live bait right now also. The few fish I have heard of being caught came right at dusk on bucktails. Anglers should work weed edges and weed beds.
Northern pike–You know fishing is slow if pike aren’t biting, and I have not heard of much action from them lately either. They too should be hitting pretty much anything thrown their way (including any size musky suckers) but just have not been aggressive lately. Look for pike in and around weed beds and weed edges.
Walleye–Anglers have seen smaller walleye up in shallow weed beds and catching them on jigs and minnows or jigs and plastic combos. Water temps should be holding larger fish in deeper water but I don’t have much to go by on that as far as caught fish right now. For shallow fish, I would look in the 4-8 FOW range and for deeper fish I would start in 15-20 FOW.
LMB–Some largemouth action on spinnerbaits and chatterbaits. Nothing crazy just some fish being caught. Work weed beds and vary your retrieve speeds to trigger fish.
SMB–The smallie bite has been solid lately and fish are aggressive. Anglers are seeing nice smallmouth on deep weed edges in 10-15 FOW and are catching them on Ned rigs, jigs/plastics and crankbaits.
Crappie/Bluegill/Perch–The panfish bite has kind of been all over, as the fish seem confused as to where they should be in the water column. Water temps are telling them to be in a certain spot while light conditions are telling them something else. I have heard crappie in particular are shallow on some lakes and deep on others. Minnows under a bobber on a jighead seem to be the best choice right now for crappie and perch.
That is all I have for this weeks report, tough times on the water for anything other than pleasure boating!! Next weeks report will come in Friday night as I am fishing the Muskies Inc. tournament next weekend and will be out early Saturday. And that report will probably be musky heavy and not much of anything else because after all, every other fish is just bait😉! Have a great weekend and we will talk soon!
Greg