I recently returned to Chicago (briefly till next trip) from my second major trip of the year. I fished June 1st thru the 16th. As always, I had an enjoyable yet challenging time catching my two favs, big smallmouth bass and muskies.
During my few weeks of fishing in May, I got spoiled by all the big bass that were caught. With the bass either spawning now (conditioned on beds and not hungry), finishing up spawning (definitely not hungry), and quickly transitioning into their summer period modes (feeding but more difficult to locate), I likely won’t be experiencing outrageous action with infinite numbers of 18-19-20-21 inch fish for the remainder of this year. Going forward, catching them is going to be work. Unlike last month, June has required a lot of work for finding and catching big active bass. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for later this summer and into fall.
Despite the recent lull in bass activity, during the first three days of the month before my pals joined me in the boat , I fished solo, and enjoyed whatever remaining prespawn fishing was left. I focused on the largest lakes on the map which are deeper, clearer, colder, and contain lower population densities. Despite having to fish them long and hard, I caught several nice ones pushing 20 inches. Unlike last month, absolutely none of my fish were hitting jerkbaits. It was entirely a shallow power cranking deal, as well as a 5 inch swimming grub affair along with the occasional tube jig. Less than a week later these same exact lakes I fished contained spawning smallmouths and beds all over the place….. The awesome spring bite died on me just like that. The good fishing had to end at some point. I didn’t bother working the spawners because they seemed conditioned, were previously fished based on hook marks I’d seen, and wanted to spawn quickly before their season opened on the 15th. These smallmouth bass are smart.
After I gave the bass fishing a rest, my friends fished with me.
On this trip I was joined by my two good fishing buddies, Brian Malack and Christopher Stolarski. Both of them drove up separately from Chicago to fish with me. A total of 19 lakes and 1 river was enjoyed with these two fellows during my two week stint. Brian joined me during half of the first week. Our plan consisted of driving off into the wilderness to fish backwoods wilderness lakes, and find new water with hopes they’d be muskie havens. Based entirely on top secret confidential intel they are havens, but they still need to prove it. These places were promising due to location and lack of public access but due to conditions we mightily struggled to catch muskies while battling coldfronts, rain storms, and below average water temperatures. We caught five muskies that week, with the notables being his 41″ and my dinky 36″ and raised a few lethargic dandies from some favorite action waters we fished. We have plans to fish again in the fall, and to focus on more backwoods places we didn’t have opportunities to fish such as rugged float trips and accessing even worse places and fishing them out of my new jon boat. Meanwhile with Chris we fished the second week together for a multispecies combination of muskies, smallmouths, largemouths, and whatever else was willing to participate with us. We caught some average bass, most of which were spawning (no super giants like last month) and found the muskies being more active but still very difficult to catch.
Due to the late spring and delayed spawn and below normal water temperatures, muskies were lazy, lethargic, and disinterested throughout the entire first week of the month with Brian. As the sunshine came out and water temperatures warmed during the second week, more muskies were seen and lots of opportunities were had. A total of 61 muskies were raised (five of which I raised or almost had which were 44 to 49 inches) with Chris but unfortunately all we could catch were six. I guess a 10% catch rate isn’t too bad considering the type of young season it’s been thus far and my limited time. And at this writing as I came home this weekend, people were catching muskies all over the place, making me envious and infuriated over the fact I couldn’t have picked a worse weekend to return from fishing.
Below are some photos from mine and Brian’s first week adventure….
Brutal boat landings were visited….
Lakes that didn’t allow access due to its lake associations and inhabitants were fished…..
But we caught muskies and a few decent pike from our go-to lakes and enjoyed exploring new waters that will someday be fished again…..
After Brian returned home, Chris fished with me and we immediately resumed with my bass fishing activities. By now, bass were observed spawning everywhere on every single lake we fished. However, we got into some action with smaller males fishing with spinnerbaits and crankbaits, and had to resort to the occasional bed fishing with plastics when that was our only option at catching anything. When we got bored with that (which was very quickly), we put away our bass gear a couple days earlier than expected and finished out the entire week chasing muskies. Below are some bass with Chris.
No giants, but fun action size.
During the second week, the musky fishing had finally picked up as more fish were seen and followers were almost being converted into strikes. Finally some action, but not nearly good enough for satisfaction. Lots of followers and interested fish were coming on topwaters, softail phantoms, dbl 8 blades, curly sues, and downsized bucktails. Lots of fish active in shallow water while some even out in the open in deep water. Here’s a few I caught along with my PB Wisconsin walleye that was accidentally caught while musky casting. I don’t fish much for walleyes in Wisconsin anymore due to overfishing, excessive pressure, and tribal spearing. Not worth the time and effort to me but this guy made me think otherwise.
One of Chris’s goals prior to his trip with me was to catch a 40 inch muskie. During our fourth and final day of musky fishing, and on the last lake we fished, he was rocked by his new personal best, a 41 incher. He credits this fish to the new casting reel he had to purchase out of emergency the night before because his crappy old Okuma broke during a hook-set of a 30 incher, his favorite topraider, the new spool of 80lb Cortland Masterbraid I outfitted him him, and my knowledge in lake selection. It all happened so quickly for him and it was awesome.
WE LET ALL MUSKIES GO, FOLKS!
Despite the mediocre fishing and late spring and summer, it was a fun, satisfactory two weeks of fishing. I got to fish with two good fishing friends, get a lot of laughs, make upcoming plans with one of them for a future fall trip and finalize our end of summer Lake of the Woods muskie trip, and be on my own leisurely carefree schedule. While the fishing was slow to me for the most part due to my unbelievably high standards, I enjoyed the explorations I made on new water, and enjoyed learning more things about my go-to lakes and rivers that I had previously not known about, and saw the most muskies in a week-long period that I have ever seen in Wisconsin.
The only bad thing about this year is I have yet to make a float trip or wade outing on any river due to high water and weekly rainfall, and I still haven’t set foot in my new fully outfitted jon boat….. depressing. Likewise I didn’t find the time to include more multispecies, nor fish a few places I’ve been dying to fish this year.
Looking forward into the summer, my next up north trip begins middle of next week as I return to fish my first muskie tournament of the year; my first ever WMT circuit event with buddy Steve Peterson. I’m looking to fish up to five days, so hopefully we fare well on my home waters the event will be on, and hopefully I put some fish into the boat and make up for these last two weeks of no big muskies… they’re in every lake I fish, just gotta make ’em bite!….. Following that, my month of July is open but will likely be spent working and truck shopping. End of July I will return to the north for an extended period, throw in a week of Canadian Muskies the first week of August, followed by a week or two back up north, and then we’re looking at fall….. I don’t want to look that far yet.
I’ll report again following next weekend’s tournament and will post some videos that I keep forgetting about.
Mosquitoes are the worst they’ve ever been this year. No matter what you do or the gallons of ‘skeeter spray you apply, you will not be protected from them. While muskie fishing last Friday evening, I still had around 30 to 40 of those Wisconsin state birds swarming around me. That explained why we were the last remaining boat out on the lake and why it was desolate by every single homeowner at 8pm.
Questions, comments, or feedback you can reach me through my page at www.ragasfishing.com
Thanks for reading.
