August 30 Fishing Report

Hi Folks. Well for most of the year we haven’t been able to turn the faucets on, now it seems we can’t shut them off. The good side of this is we needed this rain to help our water levels on many area lakes. Fishing has been fairly good despite the wet, cool weather. We are finding excellent multi-species bites beginning to form on many area waters. Walleyes, jumbo perch, crappies and bass – both large and smallmouth – have been doing very well. We are finding fish in shallow weeds as the main structure, followed up close behind by shallow timber. It’s still a nightcrawlers bite out there, but now that September is arriving and water temps are decreasing, I’m going to be looking for a minnow-bite to be starting any time now. Water temps have been dropping down into the low to middle 60’s at night and getting to the low 70’s at best towards the end of the day. Once these surface temps are down around that 65 degree mark, we should be on minnows. I am going to start taking a few minnows with me from here on out.

The next few weeks should show the bite increasing as we are heading into one of the best times of the year and these cold fronts are going to begin to “not matter”.

MUSKY fishing has slowed up a little bit. This has been one of the best summers I have ever seen for muskies. So the little bit of a slow-down has only put it a little more to the normal side. The cold weather has slowed the topwater bite, but fish are still chasing just about anything else you throw. I’ve been having my best luck with Suicks, followed close behind by crankbaits and bucktails. I think what we’re seeing right now is that mid-to late August slow-down as fish are tending to do more suspending and pulling out of the weedy areas. The exciting part for me is we are heading into one of my favorite time of the year – sucker fishing. I sure do love to do that!

Another bite that is starting to sputter and should be going strong in a few weeks, is that early fall crappie bite. Look for this action to get hot and heavy around the middle of September. We’ve already been seeing a few every day and we’ve been catching those on crawlers. As of right now, jumbo perch in the 12 to 14 inch range have been the order of the day for panfish.

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