Well as most of us know winter just will not say good bye this year with more snow and cold temperatures in the forecast it is still going to be some time before we lose the ice pack on the Bay of Green Bay. With some areas having open water in the lower bay and some open water in the Sturgeon Bay area along with portions of the upper bay there are some open water fishing opportunities available.
I spent a couple days this week fishing for Northern Pike in the Sturgeon Bay area finding very cold water still in most areas that I fished. We have been targeting water depths of 18 to 22 feet of water using succer minnows behind bottom bouncers along with casting soft plastics on jigs and heavy hair jigs.
Action has been pretty slow but there are fish present but they have been biting very light on the succer minnows and not holding on to them long. The fish that we have been getting jigging are hitting the baits harder but we have to cover water to locate fish.
The fish that we find have been in pods so when we locate fish we concentrate in that area and keep the baits working through them to get our bites. The water temps have only been warming about 1 degree through the day but the afternoons have had the better action. With any luck we can get some warmer steady weather to help warm water temps and action for all species will pickup. I had a bonus Muskie the other day that was a surprise which pounded a jig that I was casting very exciting. While this fish was around the mid 40 inch range the Bay has a lot of fish that exceed the 50 inch range along with a real shot at the next world record fish.
Paul Delaney
www.lateeyessportfishing.com