Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Info about Minocoqua, WI, in July

My brother and I have been roped into a social OBLIGATION there in July.
The persons setting it up thinks it is wonderful and that Bro and I can fish.
OF COURSE anything she knows about fishing probably came from a coffee table book or one of "THOSE" magazines
We prefer spinning gear on creeks/small rivers for trout, smallmouth, even fishin for some the little warm water guys.

Any of you from the "neighborhood" and is there anything other than lake fishing available?

Oh yeah, and what about crowds of other tourists?
Planned for the Ponte (something or another) right as ya cross the bridge heading north in to Minocoqua.
Anyone from that part of "up Nort"?

Cannot give you specifics on the fishing in the area. Minocoqua is the biggest tourist trap you will find in the northwoods of Wisconsin. Only good thing is it tends to draw big money not very outdoors type people. That said if you get a map or hit the Wisconsin DNR website you can find a lot public land all over the northern third of the state that sees little use. Get about 15 miles from a coffee or ice cream shop and you have lots of elbow room. The DNR website has the TROUT app. shows all the trout streams in the state with overlays of public land and all kinds of other info.

I typically fish trout about 75 miles east of the Minocoqua area. Love to drive the backroads and explore. The TROUT app has been an excellent tool.

Tons of tourists and you won't be alone. Not much for river fishing up in that area in summer. A bunch of lakes but would need a boat for decent fishing. Id take a day and get a guide and fish by Bayfield for smallies and pike

I use to live about 30 miles south of Minoqua.

I'd suggest you try fishing the Willow flowage,

Thank you for the info.

Is that a river, stream, flow between two lakes?
I would like to catch a Northern and Walleye, but my rods for that size fish do not beak down into travel lengths and I figure from what I am seeing on the net the baggage handlers would be willing to modify them.

I think the two of us may just meet by flying into Minneapolis a day early do a tourist drive to the social obligation and split.

The Prairie River just south of Tomahawk just north of Parrish used to be good for brookies and browns. I took a 3lb brookie out of there on rubber ants drifted under the overhang vegetation.. Little tiny fly sized daredevils with the hook replaced with a #16 Royal Coachman would fill your limit with eating sized brookies. This was in the 1960's early 70's.

Wisconsin trout map by county

https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Fishing/trout/streammaps.html

erich
Thanks for the reply.
I'm betting there are some changes in the area since the 60s -70s.

The worst place in Wisconsin for a quiet vacation, that is for sure. All the lakes are now full of houses. It is nice country ,,,, but the tourist numbers are very high. As for fishing, there are small lakes all over the place. You should do ok but I am sure it gets fished plenty . You would likely do better on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage . It is about 40 miles away, and 12,000 ac. of islands and very little is developed.

I don't think things have changed that much in 50 yrs. I still go back to NW WI to fish with my family. Both my BinL's had small grocery stores and tourist dollars dried up to the point they both closed. A lot of the resorts that were booked for the season have been broke up to single family vacation homes that sit empty most of the summer. School years are running longer so there is less of a time frame to take a vacation "Up North". More and more people want to be entertained and destination resorts are the thing.

A lot of the lakes you'll see boats on the lake on weekends but during the week things really slow down.

I go up there now to fish big northern pike, and it can be fun with days your arms give out before the fish quit hitting.

Between ticks and mosquitoes it take a pretty diehard trout guy to get on the streams.

Great place to take a new girlfriend camping "Tick Check" will get her out of her knickers in a hurry.

This last post sounds like reminiscing of an old nut.

Giant pike until your arms give out?

You go to Minocqua in July, don't bother fishing, sit in a bar and listen to tales from some booze soaked geezers
More entertaining.

I want to know what the definition of a big pike is in northern Wisconsin. Except for green bay I don't know of any lake that will consistently give up a pike over 30 inches. I don't even hear people talking out their ass about some mystery lake they won't name that has big pike. Any lake capable of producing big pike is overrun with muskies which love to eat pike.

My largest is 42" and 22 lbs. we usually put them back under 30". We keep them to eat, in my opinion filleted boneless they are better eating than walleye. I didn't say our arms got tired on giant pike, just catching a lot of them most under 30". It iis much easier to make a boneless fillet on a large pike than a small one and the flesh on a large one is firmer and flakier. Boiled in spices and onions, served with browned butter, German style red cabbage and steamed potatoes is to die for.

And Yes the lakes we fish have rough unpaved landings and we rarely ever use the big outboard as the trolling motor will get us through a morning or evening of fishing.

I will fully agree pike are some of the best eating fish out there. I have done a lot of pike hunting all over the state and unfortunately I know first hand the overall poor size structure of our pike population. I typically keep 28 inchers and up. Hard to come by fish over about 32 to 34 on a regular basis. Breaking 40 is hard to do and your not going to do it very often. My favorite haunts for pike are smaller slow warmer water rivers with lots of marsh. Most other anglers think there is nothing but carp in them.

I used to catch alot from the Milwaukee River, Waubeka down stream to the dam in Thiensville, Okauchee Lake was good. Pickrel Lake near Antigo put out some dandies. Most of the smaller lakes around Hayward/Spooner put out some nice fish, I built a retirement home for them on Clam lake near Webster.

Central ND Jamestown to Valley City and western MN the Detroit Lakes area had a lot of nice northerns also.

I hope to get to Navajo and Eagle Nest lakes in NM this year and the Rio Grande River next winter.

Yep milwaukee is good. Also the fox running through waukesha and south. Okauchee ain't what it used to be size is horrible. They actually went to a slot size couple years ago you can't keep anything between 25 and 35 inches. Okauchee is a special lake to me grandfather used to live on the lake. Caught my first pike out of there. Sadly it has become nearly unfishable because of recreational boaters.

Your living my dream. Would give anything to chase pike around the country. Would have to take a little time to chase bull bluegills in spring though.

High Falls Flowage - by Crivitz had decent pike and musky last I was there about 4/5 years back. Get off into the side areas, throw frog baits and it's good action at sizes above hammer handles.

You should be fine. Even on the busy lakes just get up early. One can fish for 3+ hours before the boats & jet skis get ramped up.

You could alway hook up with a local guide for one day, to speed things up. Have fun.