Hayward lakes report, 6/11-12

Well, it was almost a complete drubbing this weekend. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, given the major change in the weather, strong E/NE winds, and frost on the pumpkin on Sunday morning. Nevertheless, some fish were caught.

We fished Lost Land, Teal, and Namekagon between Friday night and Sunday evening. All had water temps in the upper 60s. We completely zero’ed looking for shallow fish. All of our bites came in transition areas.

Our best action was on Namekagon. We targeted areas of emerging cabbage with quick access to deep water. Dragging jigs/leeches or corking with leeches put eyes in the boat. Our largest was 17″.

Not too much traffic on the area lakes this weekend. Did anyone else make it out?

brooktrout:

Made it out this weekend on the same latitude!!! Similiar conditions from the Minocqua area as our large lakes were holding in the low 70’s for main lake water temps. Seems even the guides are having fun trying to get fish in the boat. Hexagenia Mayflies (largest) are starting to hatch which isn’t making things any easier. I have family in the area on White Sand Lake in Lac du Flambeau. I only hope that I can find something. Even the main lake humps are not really kicking anything out right now. Will probably be a hero if I can find some panfish for the nephew. Looking forward to chasing some ‘skies over the next three weeks as the full moon period, summer solstice and new moon at the end of the month!!!

Mark

Oh yeah, I forgot all about the mayflies.

They were EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Covering the surface, flying away, covering the boat, on my bibs, in my teeth, blanketing the signs at the boat ramps, EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Now that you confirmed my mayfly report, it might be better for a while to fish for ‘skies, as this may be one of the tougher times to fish for ‘eyes. Guide Don Pemble on the TFF has been reporting that all fish he is catching right now are packed full of the mayfly larvae.

Mark

When these big hatches come off, my best bet for eyes is to fish leeches at dusk in areas where a lot of bugs are emerging. Subtle approaches are usually the best: slip-bobbering, split-shot rigging, or dead sticking off the bottom. We can usually manage a few under these circumstances, but it is generally a slow time as there is SOOOOO much food in the water.