Madison Lake Report

Spent the weekend fishing the lake! The bass and panfishing was to say the least, awesome!!!! The bass were up shallow and were hitting spinnerbaits and surface lures. The panfish were hanging in that six to ten foot of water and were nailing waxworms on hook and bobber or by pitching a jig. We caught way more than we could keep and brought back our limits of big bull bluegills. All of the bass were safely released . The crappies were also very good in the eight to ten foot of water and plenty of them. Fishing pressure was low and the weather was great, except for saturday morning.

Good to hear you got some fish!
Did you stumble across any eyes at all? I know sometimes you will catch a few when fishing those bass around the bait schools.

No luck on the eyes, I tried fishing for them a little bit but the fiance had me so busy taking off her fish that I had very little time to fish for the eyes. The gills were so aggressive that they were taking my leeches before anything else could so I just decided to caught the crappies and gills with the wife to be . Thanks for the heads up on the places to fish, it really paid off. Do you ice fish Madison at all?

Once in a while. There is usually a good late ice bite on those big bulls and some crappies and walleyes throughout the year.
Sometimes during the winter a guy can get into a good bucket of 12-14″ slabbers.

We are planning on coming up over the holiday season right after christmas. Is there usually safe ice by then and where would you suggest going? In the spring and summer time we have been catching a majority of our panfish off of the narrows. This lake is new to us and a good friend has a house on the lake so we decided to move our ice fishing trip to madison. We are hopeful that it pays off!

Chunk, thanks for the report on Madison. Next year I hope to make it down there a couple times when my daughter is a little older. I used to fish this lake a lot many years ago in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I have not ice fished it though. There are other good lakes to ice fish in the area if Madison is not producing including Washington, Tetonka, and Elysian.

Thanks “fish them all” we will keep them in mind if things don’t seem to be working! It’s going to take a little time to get to know the area a little better! Thanks for all the help and I will keep everyone posted on the outcomes!