Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 8/30/21

The Lakeland area is still in the throes of a warm spell! (Pretty dramatic, eh?)

Actually, the further north you go you’ll see signs of the coming season, but around here, lake surface temps are still in the mid 70’s and only a very few trees have shown any color.

Some submergent plants are dying off, putting certain weed beds into no-swim zones it seems. Best bets are coontail (doesn’t die) off shore humps of sandgrass or rock/gravel or drowned wood. Many of these areas showing fish, yet tough to get bites at times.

Smallmouth Bass: Good-Fair – Fish aforementioned gravel humps or coontail edges using drop-shot 3” minnow imitations, 3” Wacky Worms or live crawlers. On lakes, depth ranging 14-24’, on flowages 6-14’.

Largemouth Bass: Good-Fair – Have to move away from dying weeds to entice fish to bite along edges. Wacky worming and drop-shotting effective along 12-16’ edges. A few reports of top-water action on

evenings.

Yellow Perch: Good-Fair – Deep sandgrass using ½ crawlers on Lindy or drop-shot rigs. Flowage Perch in the wood of 12-14’.

Northern Pike: Fair – With weed beds in flux, Pike very scattered. Some along deep coontail, others in green narrow leaf cabbage taking jig/chub combos. When water temps drop below 70’s, look for Pike to get more active and chase spinner baits, Mepps and chatter baits with a little more resolve!

Walleye: Fair – Catches vary day to day, sometimes with small windows of opportunity while biting on large fatheads, medium redtails or crawlers. If you can find a cabbage bed without dying weeds, fish it! Otherwise work deep humps, wood.

Crappies: Fair – Also very spotty! Some deep wood fish, but many reports of sitting over tight-lipped fish. Some big slabs to 14+” this past week, but not a lot of catching.

Bluegills: Fair – The one bright spot was the flying ant hatch that happens every year about the 3rd-4th week of August. If you happen to be on the water and its relatively calm, you can have a blast with small dry flys or poppers. Other than that, Gills have been somewhat slower than usual.

Musky: Poor – Not getting many reports of anglers moving fish. Many smaller lakes have algae blooms making sighting tough on follows. Best on surface lures or bucktails with large fluted blades.

The slightly warmer than usual late August temps, algae blooms and dying weeds have made for below typical late August fishing (which is typically tough anyway). Friday’s forecasted dip in temp for a high may trigger some interest, but it looks as if temps will remain in the mid 70’s for the rest of the weekend.