Minocqua Area Fishing Report - 9/30/24

Been a very warm September.  Thought with forecast of cooler mornings and temps to come, that things would get back to a normal fall.  Well, with the temps cracking into the 80’s in the afternoons, not much changed.  Surface temps dropping overnight to lows in upper 60’s climbing back to low 70’s by afternoons.  As, we turn the calendar page, looks like October may FINALLY bring some fall like temps.

Bluegill:  Good – Same as past couple weeks.  Suspending outside coontail edges in 12-14’ and around drowned wood.  Beavertails (small crawlers) best.

Musky:  Good-Fair – Early mornings best up tight on inside weed edges and shallow weeds.  With bright sun and mostly flat water, better to move out to deeper water weeds as things brighten up.  Top-water and bucktails that you can ride up over weeds.  Gliders and twitchbaits moving fish also.  Best fish of the week, a 48” “first fish” Musky caught with guide Jake Smith!

Smallmouth Bass:  Good-Fair – Drop-shotting over gravel humps in 18-28’ providing some action.  Lots of searching for active fish, best in late mornings.

Northern Pike:  Good-Fair – Flat, warm afternoons not helping.  #4 & #5 Mepps and spinnerbaits picking up fish in deeper weeds.  Pike prefer the cooler temps, bite should improve.

Crappie:  Good-Fair – Another species (Nearly all of them actually), that seems to be waiting for a drop in water temps to kick in.  Some decent catches of fish suspending 2-4’ off bottom outside coontail edges and over drowned wood in 12-14’ of water.

Yellow Perch:  Fair – Best in remaining green cabbage and woody bottoms on medium fatheads or half crawlers.

Largemouth Bass:  Fair – Surprisingly few reports at our shop.  Couple reports of good plastic frog top-water bites in the slop.  Some fish on Wackys mid-day.

Walleye:  Fair-Poor – Conditions NOT on our side.  Crawlers and large fatheads over off-shore gravel humps of 22-30’, but mostly smaller fish.  Some still weed related, just outside deepest cabbage in 12-15’ over mud.

We are finally seeing some patches of color in the area, they seemed to pop up overnight and will probably fill in quickly due to the late start.  Can’t recall such a warm, sunny, and many days windless, September.  Thought it was going to change this past week, but didn’t.  Yet now, as we start October, forecast of lows in upper 30’s/low 40’sand highs in the upper 50’s to low 60’s, we will finally get this fall fishing bite going.