Lake Onalaska panfish

I took the kids out to find out how the bite is on the lake this afternoon. The bite is definitely good right now with some real nice gills being caught. We caught most of ours in 10 ft of water near weedlines or shorelines using crawlers and waxies. We just used the old splitshot and a hook and fished straight down from the boat. The wind was a pain to deal with the bobbers. We caught gills, perch, crappie, and 1 bigger northern. The northern was a scrappy 35″ and I got it on the ultralight rod with 4# test line . The first time I had it up to the boat I asked one of the girls to net it. She just froze when she seen how big it was, the she kept yelling “It’s huge, holy cow”. It then made another run and eventually I got it to the boat again and netted it myself . There were a lot of boats out today and it seemed like everyone was catching fish.

I took the dog down to the lake today for a swim, and there must have been 50-60 boats doing some perch jerkin’…With all those boats, anyone have any reports?

We were on the river not the lake and got a nice mess of gils using waxies in about 5 feet of water. They bit equally well just off the bottom or with a bobber 2-3 feet deep. Waxies outdid the crawlers by far. Didn’t have to throw many back as there were mostly nice size. Perfect spot for the kids.

Gonefishing, going to take the kids out for a bit tomorrow and am debating on whether to go to the lake or not with all the people. Are they still getting some? If you care to share were you by weeds or rocks just so I have some place to start and then try to find them. Just something for the kids to reel in ya know.Thanks.

Look for a nice snag or any nice structure like rocks or maybe around some docks. I was horsing around today and probably caught 75 gils but only kept 4 and a crappie for my mother-in-law. I was fishing a dock and rocks. They are biting just about everywhere you shouldn’t have a problem.

Thanks for the info. We got the kids out on saturday and they had a blast. We were getting fish pretty regularly so it kept them entertained and if we weren’t catching anything, they were in the live well making sure nothing got away It was a great weekend weather wise also to take the kids out. Thanks again.