Fishing Report and Tips 7/9/21

The dog days of summer are offcially here and the fish are still biting fairly well. Walleyes have moved out into deeper structure and the basins, anywhere from 17-26ft depending on the lake. There is a few different ways to catch these fish, one is pulling spinners. Experimenting with your spinner presentation is key, whether that means switching weight sizes, blade color or size, or even speed. Another factor to think about is how long your spinner is as well, with clear water being common around the area don't be afraid to try spinners up to 6 or 7 feet long. Often times during the day it is effective to speed up to 1.5 to 1.7 mph when pulling spinners to create a reaction bite. Another option for the deeper fish, especially basin fish, is to pull leadcore. Some key colors have been firetiger, perch patterns, and purple. For those new to leadcore here is a good video that explains the basics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m48LRDJTXgQ. Slip bobbers and jigging raps are another good option when you find fish more concentrated. There are still some fishing holding shallow in the weeds, casting plastics or jig/minnow combo works well for that. Best bets for walleyes are Minnewaska, Reno, Mary, Andrew, and Amelia. 

Bass are still biting well on most area lakes. It can be a fun time of year to fish bass since they can be schooled up on the deep weedlines, especially on lakes like Minnewaska or the Le Homme Dieu chain. A variety of baits can work on the weedlines but some of my favorites are a jig worm (ned rig), drop shot, and a finesse jig. Finding sunfish and coontail are the two keys to finding the bass. If you can locate both of those in the same area you should be catching fish shortly. Here is a good video explain how to fish deep weeds for bass, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zlvVjUQY0. 

Sunfish and crappies are biting well if you can find them. Both are on the deeper side or just into the weeds. Cabbage weeds are very good this time of year for all species but especially panfish. Vertical jigging a smaller jig tipped with a panfish leech or piece of crawler is the best option for sunfish, once you find a few there is usually a bunch. Casting and slowy trolling through/over the weeds has been working best for crappies. Sunfish have been good on most lakes, for crappies I would look at Reno, Mary, and Villard.