Musky Shop Northwoods Fishing Report: Early September
We hope you are having a great fishing season. Man, summer always seems to go by so quickly. But with summer ending we are entering into fall and fall type movements of fish.
Panfish, especially Crappies have been biting well. Our staff members and guides have been catching Crappies and panfish in the 9'-15 range fishing weeds and wood structure. Fred has also had good success just off of the weed edge at times as depending on local weather they will move up a bit or out a bit.
Kalin's Crappie Scrubs, and Kalin's Triple Threat grubs are great on a jig, Crappies and Panfish love them. Some jigs to consider are Northland Tackle’s Baitfish Spinner and Fireball Jig or possibly Kalin’s Pendu Jig.
Bass fishing has really been awesome all season long here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Smallmouth have been hanging over weed beds and weed edges as well as rock piles and sandy rocky shorelines. Spinnerbaits have been excellent as well as the Rapala Skitter V, Northland Reed Runner, Reed Runner Magnum or Reed Runner Tandem
Largemouth Bass have been munching on Northland Tackle Buzzard Buzz Bait as well as spinnerbaits. The majority of the bucket mouths have been being caught in and around weeds and lily pads. Anywhere from shoreline to the edge, they have been roaming in and out but the majority are in the weeds and munching.
The Walleye bite has been pretty solid with the largest concentrations of eyes holding on deep structure in the 18'-25' range. Now with fall pretty well starting some Walleye's are on the move shallower so be pre paired ,that if you are not finding them on the deeper humps they are on the way to shallow structure. Casting Rapala Husky Jerks and Rapala Skatter Rap Shads are always great crankbaits for marble eyes. In early fall Night Crawlers, XL Fatheads, and Walleye Suckers. We have a young staff member who caught several nice Walleye's fishing from shore this week with the largest being 23".
We have 5 young staff members who work at The Musky Shop during the summer and are all excellent fisherman and outdoorsmen. They all love to hunt and fish and are very good at it. But most importantly they all are really good kids. They work hard, they care about our business and the customer and they are all very smart, we are very thankful to have them. With school started they aren't here as much but still work a few evenings and weekends. One of them got up at 3:00am and was on the water by 4:00am. He and his friend started the morning by trolling but after an hour with no action they began casting. That's when the action started. The next 5 hours they caught 4 Muskies and lost 5 more. Those kids really know what they're doing. The hot bait for them was the 6" Sand Cat. Muskies were clobbering them.
We have sold Sand Cats and the entire Big Fork line of Musky Lures for many years and they always continue to produce fish. The Owner of Big Fork Lures(Tom LA beau)has been making them by hand for many many years and the quality never drops. Not to mention his paint jobs are literally the best in the business.
The majority of the Muskies the boys were catching were found on weed edges and structural edges. On most of our Northern WI lakes in Oneida and Vilas County, skies are still on edges however the move shallow is starting so it's probably a good idea to work from the edge of the weeds and structure and in.
In closing, fall is here and Musky Suckers is already on everyone's mind. We currently have a very good supply and we think the supply will be good this fall but we'll see. If you're planning a trip up north you can buy Musky Suckers on our website and pick them up when you get here.
Our Guide Staff still has a few openings and would be more than happy to meet your needs.
https://www.muskyshopguideservice.com/
Well, that's it for now gang, we wish everyone a great fall and please let us know if we can be of service to you as it would be our pleasure.
God Bless and Good Fishing, Jim Stewart