Musky Shop Northwoods Fishing Report: Early July
We hope you all are having a great summer. Fishing in the Northwoods of Wisconsin has been fantastic. Many species are a bit scattered but with a little luck, you’re bound to find them. There have been a lot of Crappies and panfish caught in most weed beds and weed edges. Our guide staff member Fred Palermo has been catching a bunch of Crappies with his clients. Kalin’s Crappie Scrubs have been working well as well as Crappie minnows, leeches, and nightcrawlers.
Walleye are a bit scattered and slightly more difficult to locate. Shallow walleye have been caught right in the weeds on shallow cranks or Rapala Husky Jerks. There are good numbers of walleye hanging around rock piles in the 20'-25' range. A jig and a Redtail Minnow or Blacktail Minnow work well as well as night crawlers and leeches. Trolling cranks such as Rapala f-12s and f-14s, or a Little Joe spinner tipped with a crawler, leech, or walleye minnow are very good productive tactics to try.
Muskies have been hitting a variety of lures. Red October Tubes have been outstanding, so far this season. Big Fork Sand Cats have been catching a lot of Muskies too. Soft plastics such as Chaos Possedions and Medussas have been quite productive, and another hot bait has been the Musky Innovations Swimmin Dawg. As usual, bucktails and surface baits have also been commonly fished and always produce under the right circumstances.
All of the above baits are great Musky baits. With muskies being scattered all of these baits come into play. There are muskies in the weeds, weed edges, and suspended over deep water away from the weed edge or structural edge. The suspended muskies aren't down particularly very far. In most cases, they are in the top 10' of the water column. All of those fish can be caught by using any of the above lures. For those fish that are in the weeds, a Sand Cat, Swimmin’ Dawg, Spanky Bucktail, or Top Raider all work great to entice a Musky to react and bite.
A good way to go after Muskies when they are scattered is to set up just outside of the weed edge then cast up into the weeds, cover above the weeds, and a bit of the edge. Then if nothing is showing itself, slide out a bit, cast up to the outer edge of the weeds, and cover more of the outer weed edge and a bit out off of the weed edge. You will most likely see some muskies using this tactic but still, if you haven't seen anything then move out from the weed edge into deep water. Muskies will suspend while following baitfish. Any of the previously mentioned baits will work to catch these suspended fish. Some Muskies roam over deep water their whole life while others move in and out throughout their lifespan. Give these tactics can and do work for catching large Muskies.
Please join us Saturday, July 15th for our third annual Musky Bash. We have an incredible speaker lineup, there will be some great sales promotions as well as the opportunity to learn a lot. You are all invited and we hope you will join us for a fun Musky day learning and talking Muskies. Please let us know if we can be of service to you as it would be our pleasure.
Good Fishing and God Bless, Jim Stewart