Fishing Report 8-11-12

Not much new to report, if you check into this blog regularly or follow my posts on lake-link.

Water is cooling off, days are getting shorter. It is time to start fishing.

Panfish are still running late summer patterns. You can find quality fish suspended over deeper water, or in middepth weeds. Live bait rigs are you best bet, but plastics tipped with waxies or spikes and fished on slip bobbers can be crazy good at times. Night fishing has been very good for bluegills, as it typically is this time of year.

Bass are starting to patrol the shallow areas for soft shells. As I said earlier this week, the fish are in the shallow water around the rock/sand/weed transition areas. I'm catching a bunch of fish on a rootbeer jig and craw combo right now, but skirted grubs, small cranks and wacky rigs are still catching lots of fish. Out deeper, I'm fishing a jigworm (6" Yum Rib Worm- watermelon red and watermelon with goldflake) with my clients. They have been knocking the smaller fish (12-15") out on the watermelon/gold flake color. (56 On Monday, 60 on Tuesday, and 57 Friday -yes-173 fish-in three half day trips.) Bass will be moving up to the rocks over the next couple of days as the crayfish start to molt, but I haven't seen any softshells get spit up yet.

Northern Pike fishing has picked up substantially with the cooler weather. Deep weedlines are holding lots of fish throughout the day. Cranks, slow rolled spinnerbaits, swimbaits or suspending jerkbaits can really produce right now.

Walleye fishing: I don't have any current reports from the area. Check back next week.

Musky: Lots of people are reporting seeing musky making runs into shallow water. I haven't heard many reports like that this summer, but the cooler weather and shorter photocycle has probably awoken a few fish. Not much to report in the way of catching, but a few anglers are reporting some limited success throwing bucktails or gilders around submergent weed clumps at the end of mainlake points with steep drops into deeper water.

Good Luck out there.

On the water....8-8-12

The special pricing for my open days in August has had me on the water a bunch the last 10 days. There's still time to get in on open dates towards the end of the month...just email me for more details.

I've been on several area lakes, guiding in the mornings, scouting in the afternoons. Silver Lake is at its usual end of summer status, and I'm averaging more than 45 bass during half day trips right now.

Here's Katie with 1 of 60 Bass from Silver Lake on Tuesday.

Okauchee is primed for an early fall/late summer shallow water bite. Fowler is so weed choked as to make it hard to fish, while the water on Lac Labelle is pretty stirred up. The bite on Oconomowoc has been tough to very tough, while fish are biting very good on Moose, Middle Geneesse, Golden and Pretty.

Out for just a few (2.5) hours (9:30-Noon) this morning on Ashippun with my dissertation adviser from Madison. We were meeting for lunch, and decided to take a few hours and go bass fishing before grabbing a bite to eat.

Started out with spinnerbaits, got a real nice fish about 18" on the first drift, missing a second fish just a few yards down.  Second drift yielded nothing except some lazy follows, so we switched it up. He went to fishing a texas rig, I went with a jig and craw, and wow was that the ticket.

Just focused on visible submerged weed edges (both shallow and deep) and started catching fish right away. Ended with 16 LM and a Pike (24"), several shorties (10-13) but had five better than 15"
 
Bass were obviously looking for craws in the shallows. Saw the same thing this week on a couple of the other local lakes. The crayfish molt must be very close, but I still haven't caught a fish that coughed up a softshell.

Stay Tuned.
CT

Hook -n- Look Clip

Here's a clip from the episode of Kim Stricker's Hook-N-Look Television program. In this episode, Kim is skipping baits under pontoon boats. There's some amazing footage here in this short clip.

Pay attention to where the fish are positioned in relationship to the shadows, how they come after the lure, and how Kim is positioning his boat.