Musky Shop Northwoods Fishing Report: Early June
Hi Everyone,
We hope all of you are having a great start to the summer and catching a lot of fish.
Fishing in the Northwoods of Wisconsin has been good. We are receiving reports from customers and our guide staff that fishing has been good and weed growth has been behind, however, most lakes now are in good shape as weed growth is catching up and would now be close to normal in Oneida and Vilas counties.
The crappie bite has been good as they are hanging anywhere from the shoreline to 6-7 feet with good numbers in weeds and timber. Kalin’s Crappie Scrubs with crappie minnows, worms, and Beavertails are great for catching crappies.
Walleye fishing has been quite good. Lots of eyes are being caught in many locations. They seem to be scattered a bit as I caught 2 really nice walleyes while musky fishing. Both hit a Crappie colored 6" Phantom Softails in 6'- 8' of water. In the deep clear water lakes walleyes have been scattered with many being caught in new weed growth in weed edges and rock humps already. Our water temps in the Minocqua area really shot up creating fishing that resembles mid-summer. Large 3"-4" Redtail and Blacktail chubs are great minnows when fishing deep clear water lakes along with crankbaits such as Rapalas, Shad Raps, Rattle Traps, and Rip N Raps.
The musky bite has been good in this early part of the Musky Season. Muskies are scattered a bit like the other fish species but have been active. As muskies are scatted a good way to start your fishing day would be to start shallow, and work from the shoreline to the initial weed edge. Work that area with small to medium size bucktails, gliders, and shallow crankbaits. If nothing seems to be going in that range move out to the weed edge and out off of the weed edge as well.
There has been a good number of muskies out in the main lake basins already. Typically, there aren't a lot of muskies suspended in the basins until later in June however this season with the early warm water temps many muskies have been suspending out from structures over deeper water but in the top 10 feet so they have been active and quite catchable. Soft plastics such as Red October Tubes, Musky Innovations Swimminʼ Dawgs, Bucher crankbaits have been working great for catching muskies in the areas mentioned.
Two of our guide staff members Captains Tim Ives and Jamie Johnson teamed up to win the Lakeland Hawks Musky tournament that was held last weekend. Both of those guys are great fishermen for multi-species but muskies are their real passion. They are booked quite a bit but do have some openings if one would like to book a trip with them. If so, please feel free to contact Jodie at 715-513-7700 https://www.muskyshopguideservice.com/ as she would be happy to find a time to hop in the boat and chase some muskies.
If Tim and Jamie are booked, we also have plenty of other guides that would be happy to meet your needs. All of them are really off to a very nice start to the season. Please mark your calendar for Saturday, July 15th as you all are invited to our third annual Musky Bash. Approximately noon-4. There will be a lot of fishing manufacturers in attendance along with our lineup of Hall of Famer Russ “Smity” Smith, Hall Of Famer Joe Bucher, Long time guide and Legend Steve Herbeck, Founder of the Musky360 app, podcast host, and Pro Fishing guide Steven Paul, and our Headline will be Bass Master Classic Champion Randy Howell. This is always a very fun day for everyone in attendance including our gear line-up and Musky Shop staff. This day is one of the most fantastic days of the year. We hope you will join us as it will be our pleasure to share knowledge and be of service to you. There will be some really nice sales promotions and raffle prizes too.
Well, that's it for this time around, we hope you all have great fishing when you get out on the water.
Good Fishing and God Bless, Jim Stewart