Round Lake (Hayward Area Lakes)

A few buddies and myself are staying on Round Lake in Hayward for a four day weekend in two weeks. Mostly going for smallmouth and walleye. My buddy went up a few weeks ago to scout it and got a few small walleye in a day of fishing. Said it was pretty tough. I’m planning on finding shallow rock and throwing neds, jerkbaits, cranks and drop shots for smallies and jig and plastic/minnows for the walleye or maybe power shotting them.

Anybody have any other tips? We will probably hit some of the other lakes in the area too. I just can’t wait to get up there for a weekend with guys. Having two daughters in the last three years hasn’t afforded me a weekend like this in a LONG time. It will be a blast.

This was my result 1 week ago… Still deep 35-38fow, walleye suckers on a jig. Look for baitfish or fish hugging the bottom on your finder and set up over the top of them, we had to move around to keep catching but fished till we were out of 2 dozen suckers. Def more small fish but we caught a few slot fish as well.

Light bite, i seemed to do better with less aggressive jigging. Had buddies in another boat trying a more aggressive approach with jigging raps etc, they didn’t boat a single fish.

watisituya wrote:

This was my result 1 week ago… Still deep 35-38fow, <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye suckers on a jig. Look for baitfish or fish hugging the bottom on your finder and set up over the top of them, we had to move around to keep catching but fished till we were out of 2 dozen suckers. Def more small fish but we caught a few slot fish as well.

Light bite, i seemed to do better with less aggressive jigging. Had buddies in another boat trying a more aggressive approach with jigging raps etc, they didn’t boat a single fish.

Thanks!

Been tough in our area due to above average water temps. If we get a couple colder nights those fish will start to put on the feed bag and get more aggressive. Water on the lakes I was on this weekend was still mid 60s in the afternoon. Smallies were in that 8-12′ range but a few a little deeper and a few a little shallower. Doesn’t seem like they are really schooled up yet.

Dan Buchmann wrote:

Been tough in our area due to above average water temps. If we get a couple colder nights those fish will start to put on the feed bag and get more aggressive. Water on the lakes I was on this weekend was still mid 60s in the afternoon. Smallies were in that 8-12′ range but a few a little deeper and a few a little shallower. Doesn’t seem like they are really schooled up yet.

Thanks Dan. That is helpful and kind of confirms where I thought they might be. I know a guy that guides up there that will be coming out with us Friday morning and hopefully can get us pointed in the right direction the first morning we are out there.

Finally making it up north this weekend (Minocqua area) and not happy about the temps, air or water. Walleyes seem to be slow per Kurt’s Island reports and I’m sure fishing will be challenging – been June since I’ve fished though so I’ll be thankful to be out. I’ll try to remember to post a report here when I’m back for you Mahto.

Ned rigs in 15′ of water for smallies. had some nice fish last weekend. i couldn’t find a walleye. caught some nice perch out on the humps in 30-32′ on bottom bouncer and crawlers. water temp was 65 to 67 degrees. stayed on the south side

jake47:

Not sure when ya get up here, but I spent time with friends two weeks ago on Minocqua. They spent time in the a.m.’s and p.m.’s chasing crappies and did reasonably well in 7-10′ weedlines. Water temps have consistently been 65-66 in my boat for this lake and Madeline/Carroll. Most waters still having some type of algae bloom, unless they are the bigger deep clears with out much human activity on them.

Walleye-wise, I think I’d start with the vaunted hard/soft bottom transition, as most of the local Boley vids I’ve been watching from the Hayward area has seen him concentrating there or on open water trolling. The report from Kurt two weeks ago mentioned something similar. I did get to work the resort bar last weekend, but with the focus on the local musky tourney, not much talk about walleyes.

I will also say that there were a couple reports in the Vilas Cty thread today about shallow sand/weed connections and main lake humps. So photoperiodism is moving some fish to more normal locations even if water temps are not pushing them there yet.

Mark

mbenson wrote:

jake47:

Not sure when ya get up here, but I spent time with friends two weeks ago on Minocqua. They spent time in the a.m.’s and p.m.’s chasing crappies and did reasonably well in 7-10′ weedlines. Water temps have consistently been 65-66 in my boat for this lake and Madeline/Carroll. Most waters still having some type of algae bloom, unless they are the bigger deep clears with out much human activity on them.

Walleye-wise, I think I’d start with the vaunted hard/soft bottom transition, as most of the local Boley vids I’ve been watching from the Hayward area has seen him concentrating there or on open water trolling. The report from Kurt two weeks ago mentioned something similar. I did get to work the resort bar last weekend, but with the focus on the local musky tourney, not much talk about walleyes.

I will also say that there were a couple reports in the Vilas Cty thread today about shallow sand/weed connections and main lake humps. So photoperiodism is moving some fish to more normal locations even if water temps are not pushing them there yet.

Mark

Great info Mark thank you. I’ve been doing my Boley homework as that’s where the majority of his videos are from. It will be mostly smallmouth fishing but definitely some walleye. I’m glad you mentioned the crappies as I love fall crappie fishing and was hoping to find a solid bite up there as well. I’m heading up a week from tomorrow.

Mahto,

I was up in the Minocqua area this weekend and fishing was a bit slow. Water temps were hovering in the 65 degree range. We tried a lot of jigging on the first day with little success. We ended up switching to trolling bottom bouncers with crawler harnesses and had better luck. When we picked up a couple in a spot, we would stop and jig the pod a bit. Ultimately only ended up with a few legal ones though (slot lake). On the last day we fished a very clear lake and had some action, but no keepers with the harness setup. We moved a bunch and ended up on a rock pile that topped out at about 15′. Caught multiple smallies and a few walleyes there. Surprised us a bit since it was just after lunch and there was hardly a cloud in the sky after being completely overcast an hour or two earlier.

Good luck on your trip! I’m trying to figure out if I’m just going to abandon ship on bow hunting this year and head north another weekend!

Thanks Jake. We will primarily be going after smallies but I’ve got some harnesses, rippin raps and jigs ready to go for evening and morning walleye. Leave tomorrow and can’t wait! We are even going to get some cold weather. Thanks for the update.

Anxious to hear how you did. I did Round Lake one day after getting my a$$ kicked in the Chip for 3 or 4 days 3 years ago. Saved Round for the last day and a winter storm blew in, couldn’t see 100 feet through the snow and wind. Skunked of course. I was very surprised by the structure on the lake, particularly the amount of cribs.

Hope you were able to pull a few out of the water.

It was rough. Four days of cold weather and 15-25 mph winds. Caught a few smallies each day, a couple walleye, and got into a fun school of perch my last day. Went out with my friend Dax who is on Gillespie’s show quite often and we still only caught a few. Tight lipped combined with the winds made it tough. The place we stayed at was incredible and so was the company so it was a good trip still.