May 2 Fishing Report

Hi folks. Mild temperatures and strong winds with gusts reaching 40 m.p.h. greeted area anglers on the 2010 fishing opener. If you could hold your boat, and tolerate the winds, fishing wasn’t half bad. Our final end of the day tally was 44 walleyes boated, 3 northerns, 2 perch and 8 largemouth bass. The hits were very aggressive and you didn’t have to do much but drop the tip before setting the hook. This is one of the sure signs that point to the post-spawn weed bite.

Water temps are 55 to 56 degrees on most of the smaller or mid-sized lakes. Larger lakes are seeing temperatures around 50. Jig-and-minnow combinations were working very well. Leeches only produced largemouth bass. New weed growth was the place to be and fishing depths of 8 to 15 feet was the most productive.

Look for the upcoming week to be very good. Mild temperatures and cool nights are in the forcast so things are going to start evening themselves out, even with the early spring we had. What I was seeing are fish that were just beginning to put on that post-spawn weed bite. Activity should only get better over the next few days and I would expect that some very good fishing is just over the horizon. When picking a lake, concentrate your efforts on weedier waters and these will generally be some of your smaller to mid-size lakes. Big and Little Arb and Little St. Germain are just some examples of the types of water that I’m talking about. I would expect timber to be a valuable piece of structure to watch for also. I’ll know more by next report as I’m heading to the Turtle-Flambeau in the next day or two to try the wood.

Good luck fishing. Jeff Winters

How are the water levels in the lakes in Vilas County? They seem to be dropping every year at some of the lakes.

Tom:

Pretty much the same. Certain lakes are low and going down and others are hanging in there, not quite sure how. Need another inch of rain and soon!!!

Mark