June 16 Fishing Report

Hi Folks.

A lot of weird things have taken place since my last report. A lot of lakes that I’ve been on, actually look like they’ve turned over. There were algae balls throughout the lake, from top to bottom, along with a lot of chunky bottom debris – just all around unpleasant looking. All this combined with a bug hatch of those small mayflies, about ½ to ¾ inch long, made for some rough fishing. We were able to dig out our walleyes on most days, but we found fish almost like turnover – scattered all over the place. We caught walleyes in 3 ft up to 20 ft and just one here and there ….. Bites were extremely light and fish were just not eating quickly. We found ourselves backing off for 30 seconds on fathead minnows and even then it was a 50-50 chance of a hookset. These past couple of weeks – patience has been the name of the game. You had to battle to keep the frustration levels down.

Water temps have finally hit a point where we’re staying in the 60’s after these past few days of warm weather. This has also shown us some of the water beginning to clear up. We should start seeing a crawler bite any day now. As of yet, we have not been able to get them to fire on these things, even leeches have slowed up considerably. Now I would imagine the BIG mayfly hatch is still in our future and this should trigger a very good bite.

MUSKY anglers have also been frustrated for the most part. Fish have been very sluggish and the reports I’ve been getting from anglers targeting muskies has been poor to fair at best. Watch for these things to change. I’ve been sharpening my hooks lately and getting ready for what I think is going to be a very good bite. I’ve been seeing a lot of big fish starting to move heavily in my walleye spots. Now we’ve been catching smaller muskies pretty regular now on jig-and-minnow combinations. So hang in there and keep plugging – good things are just around the corner.

BLUEGILLS have come in to spawn now. Quite a few area anglers are beginning to chase these high quality table-fare. Hook-bobber-and a piece of nightcrawlers is about all you need to get started. Fish are all over shallow weeds up to about 3-1/2 feet of water seems to be best.

That’s it for now. See you on the water. Jeff Winters