Hi folks,

Well the past week showed us a different front every day and it seems to be raining all the time.  Combine this type of weather with the bug hatch and it made for a tough week.  So far this week we have seen a little better weather, although the rain still seems to be hitting and fishing has improved dramatically.  When it comes to walleyes, nightcrawlers are the bait of choice at this point in time.  Many lakes are emerging from the mayfly hatch and summer patterns are beginning to evolve.  I’m finding fish along deeper weed edges and slowfall jigs tipped with crawlers have worked the best.  When fishing this type of structure, keep your boat outside of those weeds and cast just to the edges.  Try not to get into the thick of the cover as this will tend to spook the fish.  On dark water look at about 7 to 9 feet; and when fishing clear water, 10 to 14 feet. 

MUSKIE activity has been fair.  Success varies from lake to lake.  We’ve been doing well with 6 inch Suicks and small to medium bucktails.  There have also been reports of surface activity beginning to take place now that the warm weather has returned.  Water temps are running around 74 degrees.  When looking for muskies — weed covered humps are good places to begin looking, followed by the deeper weed edges were many of the bait fish are hanging out. 

PERCH have also been putting on a very strong bite at the moment.  We’ve been finding these tasty little morsels on virtually all the lakes I fished.  I’m not particularly targeting them, but once I detect a bunch around, I’ll switch to a half-crawler and a little smaller jig.  Natural lakes – a guy has to weed through a lot of small fish and you’ll find some keeper-sized.  Flowages have been producing the good ones.  And while I haven’t found too many of the “monster” jumbo perch, I’ve been getting a lot of the nice eater-size while fishing walleyes.

Good luck fishing.  Jeff Winters   www.jeffsguideservice.com