Conover and Phelps, Wisconsin, Fishing Guide Reports & Conditions

FISHING REPORTS:

Wow, I haven't said this for a long time... We are in a cool rainy cycle. I know it's not what the visitor to the northwoods wants to hear but we need it BAD. Myself and a few other guides were sitting around Great Outdoors Sports Shop a few days ago and we were commenting on the growing number of lakes there were that were among our favorites and that we can't fish them because of the low water levels. So please don't hate us when we cheer the rain.

Other than the rain the fishing has still been pretty good -- but only if you go deeper and slower. One thing rain does is kick most of the fish out of the shallows into the deeper and warmer water nearby. A friend of mine was on a lake we love to fish with a client the other day and HAMMERED the fish by going out to 7-10ft instead of the normal 3-4ft and kept his bait on the bottom slowly jigging.

The weather looks like it going to be this way for a few more days so if your hitting the water leave the crawlers, fast cranks and impatience at home cuz none of them are likely to do you any good.
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@deweycatchemandhow.com>
- Tuesday, June 08, 2010 at 08:52:42 (PDT)

I've been fishing quit a bit over the past few days and the basics of northwoods fishing are evident on every lake I have been on. Sometimes it's just not complicated, especially at this time of year. Here we go.

Basic #1 - Find GREEN weed beds, 7-10', next to deeper water. Fish right in those weed beds and their edges with the lightest jig possible to get thru and to the bottom. Use mainly minnows at this time but I have had some success with leeches too. And don't be afraid to buzz some plastics and cranks thru these areas. A lot of times they will out-catch live bait.

Basic #2 - Fish the wind blown shore lines. If the wind is not blowing into the area you are thinking about fishing, go somewhere else. Wind blows in the food chain. No food, no active fish.

Basic #3 - Keep moving. Run and gun different areas until you find the fish then slow down and hammer them.

Basic #4 - Look for LM and SM Bass in the shallows right now. They are cruising and protecting their beds and are actively hitting anything that gets near them. Find the beds and you'll find the fish in them or in deeper drop offs next to them.

Basic #5 - If you want fast action on walleyes, fish during low light periods. Yes they can be caught during the day but would you rather catch 6 walleye in 6 hours of daylight or 6 walleye in 30 minutes of low light. The exception here being the very dark-watered flowages that don't produce well during dark as their waters are already very dark.

That's enough for now. The fish are biting and the weather is GREAT. Get out there, have fun, and take a kid with you!

Hey, don't forget to take a kid fishing and HAVE FUN!

Click on photos for larger images

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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@deweycatchemandhow.com>
- Friday, May 28, 2010 at 09:04:00 (PDT)

I am still amazed at how many people still don't get it. FISH THE WIND BLOWN SHORES! "Dewey" took me fishing for my birthday last night and we saw the same thing over and over. Boats parked on shorelines out of the winds. And it wasn't even that windy. The one thing we didn't see was them pulling in a pile of fish. Yeah, there was one here and one there but no big runs. One the other hand when we headed to a wind blown rocky point with some nice green weeds on it, we caught fish. Bunch of crappie, small mouth bass and a couple of northern. We also hit another spot with lots of woods on the bottom and picked off a couple of real nice smallies. The walleyes hid well for us this night.

The bite was on minnows and leaches and cranks, nothing on crawlers. Today we finally have some clouds and a little more wind. This should help a lot because most species are found right now in very shallow water. Smallies, Largemouth, bluegills and crappies are all in some stage of the bedding thing. This means that those toothie critters are feasting on the ones that aren't weary enough.

It should be a great weekend of fishing, maybe the best of the year... If you stay on the wind blown shorelines. One note of caution though. The water levels are VERY low. Flowages are very dangerous and a lot of lakes are not launchable. I had a fella tell me yesterday that Wild Rice was launchable but you couldn't get out of the power wash hole. Not good.

Go get 'em guys and gals. Take lots of different bait with you and have FUN! And don't forget the kids!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@deweycatchemandhow.com>
- Friday, May 21, 2010 at 10:11:30 (PDT)

After the Blackhawks took care of business in San Jose yesterday afternoon I decided to take a couple of hours and see if I could boat a Northern or two on a spinner bait. Well I did see tons of fish...because it was so calm I could see the bottom in five feet. Saw plenty of nice northern and bass cruising the bluegill and crappie beds looking for easy targets I guess. I did throw a 2" Gulp grub for some crappies and was mildly effective at that. It was so calm I had to throw the bait out as far as I could to get a bite. And even then they were very light hits, mostly stealing the tail off the grub. And if the tail wasn't on the grub, well, no interest.

The next few days should be great, highs in the 70s and light breezes. I'll be out there and I'll let you know what's popping. Oh, btw, that lake was at 52-54 degrees two days ago. Now it's at 62-64.

Hey, don't forget to take a kid fishing and HAVE FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@deweycatchemandhow.com>
- Monday, May 17, 2010 at 11:27:00 (PDT)

I just couldn't take sitting around and working on web sites anymore so when Dennis called and said "let's go hit 'em with cranks for an hour or so", I responded "I'm IN!" Cold, windy and rain spitting on my glasses was only a deterrent until the first fish was caught, which wasn't long. Dennis has his firetiger stick bait on and I tied on a chartreuse glow jig and tipped it with a bright yellow gulp grub tail. I saw Dennis's face when I did this and I knew he thought I was nuts. Well, 13 Walleye (13-16"), 4 Rock Bass and one 30" Musky later and the fish catching score was even. All of this in an hour and it would have been more but the Musky took about 15 minutes off our fishing time getting it in the boat and then released from the light tackle. Lot's of fun. This is the short period of time during the year when you can get the 'eyes up shallow on this lake, in good numbers. Dennis claims he got 25 of them two nights before.

I'm sure we won't get out today as it is going to rain all day and not make it out of the 40's. But this weekend looks fantastic. I can't wait. I'll keep you informed as we plan to get a bunch of pics and videos put up on the site.

Hey, don't forget to take a kid fishing and HAVE FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 09:23:50 (PDT)

Wind, Rain and Cold. No, that's not a rock and roll group from the 60's and 70's!

I wish I had a great "You gotta be here" report to put up but I think we are paying for all our beautiful weather in April. Highs in the 40's, north winds and rain have been the norm. All this can make for an fishing trip deemed uncomfortable at best. But I bring you good tidings. The weatherman says warmer weather is on the way this weekend and thru next week. So dust off the poles, buy some minnows and get ready to put that "Gone Fishing" sign back on the front door.

I'll post another report later this week to tell you where they are.

Don't forget when you go to take a kid fishing with you and make sure you have FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 08:47:23 (PDT)

The fishing over the Opener was good, windy tough, but good. Walleyes were caught on shore and as deep as 30 feet on some lakes. Crappies, Northern, Perch, Bass and Bluegill also cooperated nicely and fine catches were taken across the region. Now the bad news. The weather report looks like $&%*^#@. Nice day today, up to 68, but then the bottom starts to fall out with a HIGH on Saturday of only 42! Yikes. (don't think snow) These temps will slow the fishing, no doubt. But the good news is that while it might be slow now, it will come back with the temps next week. Does this mean you can't catch fish now? No, no, no. What it means is the fish will not be as active so you must do two things. SLOW down your presentation and REDUCE the size of your jig holding the minnow. If anything changes, which it some times does, I will let you know. Hey, take a kid fishing with you and make sure you have FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Tuesday, May 04, 2010 at 09:12:25 (PDT)

one of my readers e-mailed me to let me know i forgot to mention them thar basses. they are in the green weeds chasing the rest of the fish in there. but one of my favorite presentations, for smallies or largies, is a crooked purple worm retrieved very slowly over the weeds and rocks. if you need depth, put a small sinker a foot or so in front of the worm. yes you can use spinner baits, twister tails and others, but i love the purple worm (chuck's). and dont for get to let them basses go!

take a kid and have some FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Friday, April 30, 2010 at 16:57:52 (PDT)

The big day is almost here and the anticipation is higher than in years past. For the first time in a long time we are ahead of schedule as far as temps and conditions on the area links. And that’s a good thing.

The Walleye are down spawning and are in post spawn. That means they are starting to feed heavily after ‘fooling around’ with each other for the past few weeks. Look for rock shorelines going into sand or mud bottoms or for GREEN weed edges in and around 10 feet of water. As always, low light periods are the best.

Crappie are on the bite right now. With most lake temps in the upper 50’s right now, the crappie are close to hitting the beds which they normally do at around 62 degrees water temp. Look for them in 5-10 feet of water, in green weeds and the warmest water you can find. 1 degree can make a difference. Plastics are doing much better than minnows right now at 1-2 feet under the surface.

Perch are with the Walleye. Look for them in the weeds looking to feed on minnows or those little plastics in your box.

Northern Pike are in all the same places. You can fish for Crappie, Perch and Bluegill and I’ll guarantee you latch on to a few pike and Musky. If you want to target pike, nothing works better right now than a flashy spinner bait worked slow and fast over the top of those green weeds right now.

The weather for this weekend doesn’t look to good right now. The temps are ok as they should be in the 60’s but the winds are predicted to be 24-45mph. That will make it tough. Most boats will be looking for a place on the lake to get out of the wind but the boats that fish those wind-blown shorelines will be the ones bring home the catch. The wind not only blows the food around but also the warm water which is on the top also.

Hey, take a kid fishing with you and make sure you have FUN!
-----------------------------
Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 12:29:42 (PDT)

Finally... One of those days you fish for.

We hit another different lake yesterday, one of the reasons I love this area--3,000 lakes in two counties, and looked for north shorelines with the highest temp. We found one we normally don't fish but it had 58 degree water. So we loaded up the jigs with minnows and started throwing little jigs and plastics.

To make a long story short, we found one spot on the shoreline that was about a foot deeper than the surrounding areas and we hammered them. We put the minnows away and thru the plastics. Crappie after Crappie, cast after cast. Also 3 nice Northerns (released), a few bit offs, 1 40-some inch Musky that got to the boat after grabbing a Crappie coming in and a few perch. We caught 60 Crappie and cleaned 50 of them.

Dennis' son Shawn was with us again and after napping he helped Dad reel in a few fish. At one point he decided that he had reeled in enough and when Dad asked him to reel in another he said "you go ahead Dad, I'll let you have some fun now."

Moral of the story, keep moving till you find them and give them everything till you find out what they want. I always seems the warmest water in some kind of hole will hold the fish.

The best part is we are just getting started. They are still 8 feet from the beds! Man, I love this time of year. It's FUN!

Click on photos for larger images

-----------------------------
Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 11:10:52 (PDT)

We're close... The water temps on a 1,000 acre lake was 54 yesterday and a smaller, shallower 300 acre lake was 57. Another couple of degrees and the crappie should really start to bite. We caught a few but very sparatic and only small males. Gonna try and get out today. We also put some new videos on deweycatchemandhow.com that should be viewable later today.

__________________
Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 11:09:27 (PDT)

me and dennis hit a small clear lake tonight to coax some walleyes into our live well and to see if the negative effect of this cold front was over. well it isn't over but we did better than we thought. seven walleye, some real nice perch, all on crawlers on 1/32 oz jigs in just over an hour on 7-10' weed edges. i missed a real nice walleye on a bite off (no, not a northern) and we both missed a bunch more. they would pick up the bait and drop it, pick it up and drop it again, frustrating, but activity.

dennis remarked that it would be good to get home at a reasonable time to spend time with the family so off we went. sitting on hwy 51 waiting to turn left onto dennis' road, we were rear-ended by a fellow driving a jeep. he said he never saw us until the last second. he glanced-hit the back right corner of the boat with the drivers side of the jeep and shattered his windshield and blew out all of the windows on the drivers side AND his rear window. what a mess, glass EVERYWHERE. nobody was hurt. while the cops, fire engines and ambulances did their work, i told dennis that our mistake was putting his family before fishing. lesson learned.

the fishing should do nothing but get better now thru ice-up. GET UP HERE!
Jeff Bolander <jeff@upnorthpublishing.com>
- Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 19:53:41 (PDT)