Lake Monona

Don't have any recordings for out in front of Yahara Place. I've scanned the whole area looking for "treasures" but not to generate a contour map. I've made a note to do this before freeze up or first thing in the spring when the weeds are at a minimum.

yea, that's not what it really looks like. The attachment here shows a more accurate representation on that area (from Contour Elite mapping software). Mapping companies use their software to "fill in the gaps" of areas not actually scanned. I think I may have a sonar recording of that area, which if I do I can generate a much more accurate contour map (same way AutoChart Live works, but this uses either track data or sonar recordings to generate the same map, but on your laptop). When I get time I'll do some digging.

Wow, so its a dredge channel, eh?  So interesting and glad I learned that.  Thanks!  That makes sense; no way it could have been a natural reef.  What I was referring to was another "structure" just east of the man-made reef.  Its labeled 17 ft on this map if you can see it, but I've never found it on my sonar. 

Out playing around for a while this morning before it got too warm. Surface temp was at 70.3°F in the middle of the lake. The thermocline has dropped a little bit, down to about 33' now. Below the thermocline was in the lower 50's. Still marking schools of suspended fish and located an isolated boulder off a bar in 21 FOW that had a bunch of Gills on it. The one big boulder I like to periodically check just had a few Gills on it. Didn't check any structure this trip out. Nice and quiet out there today without much wind.

Low-Tech, you're probably referring to the area they dredged out many years ago when they built up the shoreline off Yahara Place Park. Shallow heading out from shore with weeds, then the dredged area then shallow again until it hits it's normal drop offs to deeper water. Not really an "island" (not surrounded by deep water all the way around), kind of a shallow finger.

Lowkey - I'm a little confused...if you go east of the Yahara River Inlet, you'd be in the NE corner of Lake Monona, not the NW corner. However, there is indeed a pretty healthy, elongated underwater hump east of the inlet. Fished it many times.

Many/most contour maps of Lake Monona show an a small sunken island just east of the Yahara Inlet reef in the NW corner of the lake.  I have never found such a structure.  I assume this is a long-propagated map-making error? 

Not much has changed since my last report.  The six week gill bite continues.  Out yesterday and threw back forty between 7.5 and 8.0 inches. Those were the ones I took time to measure.  Crappies still hit and miss.  Am a bit concerned that I'm not catching many small ones.  Didn't catch many small ones this spring either.  I know for meat eaters that's good but it's been my experience that the crappie population can be boom and bust on Monona. I like catching them but prefer gill meat for eating.  Although I've noticed when you catch a crappie and people who are not catching crappie who want to be, you instantly have "friends" or as Rat calls them "not my friends".  What they are called is also very dependent on Rat's mood that particular day. If you catch my drift..... 

Oops I did it again.  A Sunday morning accident.  Luckily one of my "friends" had a Leatherman's tool. Of course he was I hadn't caught any crappies yet.  Rat.

Been out scanning Monona the last few trips out. Big flock of seagulls on the water making a bunch of noise, assumed they were over some White Bass. As I'm getting close to them to check an earlier sonar hit I took a screen snapshot of all the fish I was going over. Dropped the camera down to check the sonar hit and I saw the fish on the sonar again so I lifted up the camera and yup, all White Bass! Last year at this time I shot some video of a ton of Gills (and other fish) on a larger piece of structure. Went over it again today and shot some video of Gills stacked up again along with some Crappies. Sheepsheads were also schooled up around the base of the structure. Water temp yesterday out past Olbrich was 66°F, over off Schluter Beach area it was 71°F. Today it was 69.1°F. Little cool this morning first thing but warmed up nicely! Anxious for this fall to get some decent clarity again. I've been scanning grid sections and have over 200 sonar hits to look at. With the poorer clarity right now it makes it tougher to get onto and see smaller targets. Over 200 new sonar hits to try and identify. Only identified four logs in (four different) depressions today, and one tire. No time to get bored! :) 

Out yesterday.  Blue gills triple dog dare ya stupid. They bit every thing I threw at them. I literally had a bite on a bare yellow jighead during the gill fest. You can see in the pic my hand is beat up a bit.  Can't wait to paint my small deck after work today.  You know there is no way on this Earth I would tell my wife my hand is too sore too paint. "Well maybe you shouldn't fish Sunday".  No way no how.  Good luck this weekend.  Rat.

Rat weekly report- or so.  Gills getting more stupider in the places I fish.  Lot's of yoy minnows right now and the perfect size for gills to eat.  Tip your plastic minnow presentation with spikes or waxies and get ready for action. Or downsize your hooks and use small crappie minnows. Crappies still finicky but as the water cools and we move into fall they will eventually get more stupider especially at dusk. Good luck out there.  Rat.

Fished with a buddy and my son-in-law. Slow bite drifting in 10-15  FOW. Red  tube with a waxie did most of the damage. All gills and enough for a couple of frys. 

Not much to report from this mornings trip, water temp at 77.4°F. Wind wasn't bad when I got out there, only one other vehicle in main lot at Olbrich. Whitecaps when I called it a day. Still marking suspended schools and a bunch of gills, crappies and sheepshead on a piece of structure I checked.

Out on a boat last night 6 to 8:30.  Took a while to find gills but when we did it was on.  Weed line sitting in 11 to 12 feet casting towards shore.  I just cast/retrieve buddy uses slip bobber.  We both tipped our plastics with wax worms and spikes.  The gills have been very active between 7 and 8 pm all summer.  It's hard to know for sure if we would of found'm at this spot at six versus seven how the action would of been.  It was spot that my buddy and his dad marked back in 2012.  They hadn't fished it since then.  Rat.

fished from 6.30 to 1pm  lot of bass (mostly small) from west side docks  finally found several keeps on the south side.  cpr  nothing on toopwater, 2 on a bladed jig.  most caught on soft stick bait  more current in river than I've seen all year, nice  good luck all  RT