July 10 Fishing report

Hi folks

Well the season continues forward. The past couple of weeks has been some tough fishing. While we’re still catching fish, it’s not always the target species that comes out on top. With the up-and-down weather, the bite has gone up and down, and at times you just have to go with what the lake’s willing to give you.

WALLEYE fishing has been slow and steady. These fish are not jumping in the boat at this point in time, and you have to work all day, being very deliberate and patient in your approach. Jigs tipped with crawlers have been working the best and if you’re on a lake that’s infested with panfish, you can try leeches. Walleyes are still weed-related and do not seem to be around anything that does not have some weed near it. This bite should improve as time goes on. If you go out looking for these fish, concentrate your efforts in 12 to 15 ft. weed edges.

MUSKY fishing has been very good lately. Many big fish are being boated throughout the Lakeland areas --- and we’re talking low 40’s to 50-inch type fish. We’ve been finding our fish on the weed beds with a pretty good bite window taking place at dawn and again in the early afternoon hours. Top water lures are providing anglers with lots of good action. After this, my best lures are crank baits, especially perch-colored as weed beds seems to be infested with perch right now. I have not had much luck throwing Large lures at these fish – they still tend to be concentrating on smaller, mid-sized lures.

BASS fishing, especially largemouth, has been very good. These fish have been patrolling weedbeds and eating just about anything they can. A wide variety of live bait and lures has proven effective on these fish. Jigs tipped with either minnows or crawlers has been working along with a variety of plastics and spinner baits. Smallmouth bass have also started to come out and play with the warm water temps. These are my favorite fish and we’ve been finding them around timber and rock bottom structure. Crawlers, leeches and plastic crawdad-type lures have been working very well this past week.

Good luck fishing. Jeff Winters