Mayfly Hatches In Full Force

The recent warm weather that we have been experiencing has triggered some massive mayfly hatches. As usual this has slowed the fishing a bit, particularly for walleyes. They are still biting but we are having to work much harder for our fish than in recent weeks. Allot more spot hopping to find active fish. Still managing to put together nice mixed catches as shown in the attached photo from this past Friday. Crawlers are clearly the bait of choice right now. I'm still finding fish in the same locations, weeds in natural lakes or wood in the flowages. Most fish coming in the 10' to 15' depth range.

Weed growth is filling in nicely now and largemouth bass and panfish are settling in to their summer patterns of relating to the deeper weeds. Smallmouth bass are biting well on a variety of artificials such as topwaters, plastic worms, and stick baits. If having trouble getting them to go on artificials, leeches or crawlers on jigs or slip bobbers will always work.

An approaching cold front may make things a bit tougher for a couple of days but the forecast is for the cool weather to be short lived.