Summer Fishing is Picking Up

Fishing got quite a bit tougher since my last report. We had to endure a bug hatch, 10 straight days of storms and a miserable heat blast. Fishing was hard. The past few days have shown some pretty good action on a bunch of different fish. It’s a crawler bite now and this opened the door to a summer multi-species bite. We have been catching walleye, perch, bluegill and bass in good numbers. Jigs and slip-bobbers have been working well. Keep your retrieves slow as fish are not real aggressive and a 20 second wait before setting is the norm. Weeds and timber are good places to search out. Water depths for fishing vary from lake to lake. Target your walleyes early and late for best results and the rest of the day go with the attitude of “take whatever the lake gives you”. Bass generally provide anglers with the best daytime action. Walleye are the toughest species to find on most lakes. With short prime windows, you don’t have a lot of time to find them. On lakes I’ve been locating these fish in open mud. They are setting out there between the rocks and weeds. You have to drag all over till you locate them. If you do, there will be a bunch. These patterns are probably due to the fact that water temps have been hovering in the low to mid 80’s for a week now.

Smallmouth bass have been excellent as of late. Crawlers, leeches and plastics are all working well. We’ve been having our best luck in timber. Rocks have bee the next best. These fish are full of crawdads and are feeding hard. Shallow water usually 5 to 7 feet has been my best.

Muskies have been spotty at best. Whenever these storms pop up, fish have been active right before. Those blue bird days become very touch. I’ve been concentrating on deep weed edges when chasing these fish. The strongest and most consistent bite-window has been taking place late in the day. You want to be out there as the sun hits the trees. The entire tackle box is open to use, as usual, my trusty Suick is #1 and the Mepps H210 has also provided some good action.

That’s it for now. Catch you on the lakes. Good luck fishing.