Cisco Chain, Vilas County (all postings)

Was out on the Chain for about two weeks and the fishing was pretty solid. We mainly targeted Walleye and Northern. The northern definitely came easier then the walleye did at first, but we began fishing West Bay Lake and nailed about 5 to 6 a day. The northern were all under 30 inches except for a 35 and a half incher caught off a whopper plopper. We hit a bunch of largemouth in Michigan Bay located on Big Lake using a worm the common slip bobber rig as well as spinnerbaits. Overall, the fishing was solid this year, and I look forward to going back in a few weeks!

Mosquitos were terrible last week Wednesday and Thursday. Not so bad on Friday through Sunday, though. Lots of dragonflies hatched and were patroling the skies and I think they ate a lot of the mosquitos.

If I were you, I'd buy some cutter spray that attaches to your garden hose, then spray down your yard and trees. That stuff really worked at our place.

Thanks vegas. I really appreciate the advice. Were the mosquitos as bad as advertised??

I haven't been on the Cisco Chain since May. But I was up last weekend and did a little walleye fishing close to there.

Walleye bite was good in the evening hours. And we did best on weedlines, about 6-9 feet of water, with slip bobbers and jumbo leeches. Slip bobber was about 5-6 feet down.

We did try jigs and minnows, but leeches were the ticket.

So find some weed edges and rock bars that top out around 10 feet and do some slip bobbering with leeches in the evening hours.

Hope you find some fish and good luck!

Coming with the family and arriving on July 4th. Any advice as to where i can take the wife and kids to catch some fish? Walleyes would be great but also like panfishing if they have some size. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks

I'll be coming up this weekend. Does anyone know if the mayfly hatch has started or anticipate when it might occur?

Just got back from also staying at Vacationland Resort last week. We tried for walleye but we've never had much luck, mostly because we're not comfortable with our techniques I suspect. The ones we did pick up were on slip bobbers with crappie minnows near timber.

At any rate the water temps were in the high 60s and low 70s while we were there. Air temps ranged from mid 60s to high 70s with some rain on a few days and partly cloudy the rest of the week.

We had a lot of success with crappie near downed timber. They were just starting their spawn so they were fairly active. I suspect this week they'll be very active so you shouldn't have any issues with them. We just used bobbers with crappie minnows.

As usual we had no problem finding northerns in any weed beds that we ran across.

Picked up a few small mouth bass near the big rock pile in Thousand Island.

The weeds should be just right this week for running crank baits right across the tops without much issue.

We did not venture out at night because the mosquitoes were absolutely not to be believed while we were there. The dragonflies hatched on Thursday which helped a little, but they had a long ways to go before making a dent in the billions of mosquitoes. We've been heading to the chain for 8 years now and this is easily the worst year for bugs that we've ever seen.

Good luck out there!

Thanks Tout

Fishing Report for Weekending 5/24/14

Just got back from the past week fishing on the Cisco Chain staying at Vacationland Resort. This was the best fishing that I could ever have imagined. There was 3 of us, and we caught over 300 fish over 6 days, 90% walleye. On average, we were able to catch 5 keepers per day ranging from 15" to 23". The amount in the 13 to <15" was incredible, ie, we were not catching many 12" and less fish which bodes well for the future. I have never caught keepers and released because we were at our limit. A good problem to have.

Thousand Island was at 46 when we arrived and was at 55 when we left. We fished mainly East Bay, Big Lake bays, and Indian Lake. These lakes had warmer temperatures (not so much in Big Lake) and East Bay was 64 on this past Friday. We fished 12 hours a day since we caught fish all day and just could not stop until it got too dark. The pattern was that you could catch keepers at any time of the day BUT it really got hot at sunset to 9:30 PM. We had triple headers during this time several times. We moved from location to location a lot which is not easy on you, but necessary. I was committed this year to finding keeper size walleye and not be content with just catching 13" walleye. If the size of the walleye was not good, we moved down a ways or left to another location. It "seemed" that the same size traveled in schools. We had good fishing weather for all week which was clouds to partly cloudy except Friday which was sunny. We caught just as many on Friday though on a mostly sunny day. We used medium minnows and a few leeches. With leeches, you have to set the hook soon after a hit or you will lose the leech. WE ran out of bait on two days.

I am not good at fishing weed beds, but I know they are critical to fishing for walleye. I did fish the west bay and bridge weed beds, and we caught some fish, but not the same numbers as what we found on wood on shorelines. I am not sure if it was me not giving the weed beds enough chance, but it was hard to break from success. We looked for shaded shorelines, wood structures, light chop heading into the shorelines, and no less than 7' of water to fish in. I would say that the only must is to fish in 7' or greater water depth when dealing with shorelines. We had every bite type imaginable for walleye. Caught just as many under the boat as we did on shoreline. Be aware that smaller northerns are sitting right against the immediate shoreline if you cast in too far and they will be a pain to land or they will wrap you in wood.

Crappie were hitting more on Friday so I am wondering if they are going to be hot this week. For the people we met at Vacationland and Bents, most are crappie and perch fishing and the art of walleye fishing seems to have been for a chosen few.

We could only top this by finding some larger female walleyes, but this year will be tough to beat.

all of those tactics will work. also planer boards with rapalas .

LOL! Thanks. We go through about 8 pounds of them in less than 6 days. Do you hit rock piles, drop offs, weeds?

leeches!!!

Heading up on June 8th for a week on the chain. I will post a report when I get back/maybe up there if my phone gets reception.

Anyone have any word or advice on how to fish thousand island? I do very well on the rest of the chain but have not really ventured up there. I am looking for a new challenge on the chain. Even though most days are!!!

Thanks

Spent a wonderful weekend with my daughter on Big Lake.Walleyes were in the old weed growth generally 7-9' deep. Jigs with a fathead under slip-bobbers worked great.A big run on the fatheads made them hard to find on our last day. Also...between the numerous Pike we caught some nice Perch and a few Crappie doing the same.

FYI for anyone not aware, as of yesterday the ice was finally out on Thousand Island, or at least in the southeast area of the lake. The resort we generally stay at posted on their facebook page and things look clear.