Good morning, yesterday was nasty weather rain, wind, cold, sun/clouds, but it was definitely musky fishing weather! The rest of the week looks decent with more rain forecasted for next weekend. Water temps started the day around 64 but by the time we got done yesterday I was seeing like 61 so the fall bite should really get good once we dip below the 60 degree mark.
Musky–The musky bite is hot right now, lots of anglers doing well on suckers and artificial lures. From what I am hearing and seeing, fish are still pretty shallow working edges adjacent to deep water.
Northern pike–I did hear a few anglers catching some nice northern over the past week, some also on suckers but mostly on smaller bucktails and faster moving artificial baits. Work these same edges and look for weeds that are still a healthy green to locate pike.
Walleye–A few anglers were in earlier in the week and said they were finding walleye right off the dock in the evening so they stuck with that. It sounds like other anglers were finding walleye in shallow water too so fish may be pushing up shallow and chasing bait fish right now. As the water temps keep dropping big fish are going to chase the forage so move around and try new things if you don’t find fish where you expect them.
LMB–The largemouth bite has been hot as well lately and anglers are doing fantastic on spinner baits worked through weed beds and on the edges of the weed beds.
SMB–Smallies are moving around as well and anglers are finding them mostly while walleye fishing (at least around here). Shallow structure with sandy bottoms seem to be holding fish.
Crappie/bluegill/perch–Going to lump all of the panfish together this week because I am just not hearing much on a bite for any of these species. The last I have heard was that crappie were still in deep water while gills and perch were mostly being caught in weed beds.
Have a great weekend and we will talk soon.
Greg