Lake Kegonsa, Dane County (all postings)

Have you tried leeches under slip floats in the river by fish camp?

the thing that gets me is people who generally NEVER post on this thread are the ones who have issues....huh..

REPORT: smallest jig in the box kinda day. usual spot did not produce today had to move around to find em. made the mistake of buying the little little red worms. jeesh almost went through two packs slimy suckers. took enough for a meal or two....

anyone out seeing eyes or gills on the main lake?

Went out Saturday morning with the wife and sister. We caught a large pile of bass on our baits from rhyno tackle co. Also caught some gills and a huge dog fish. We saw a lot of crappie but we could not get them to chew on worms or mites.

MJS - if this forum is designed to give fishing reports and you are so against that than why are you even here?

What would you want this forum to be for?

Again, all fish released and swam away happily, even the dog fish

There goes this fishery

B1ak, we did the same thing today but we couldn't get the fish to bite. Mabey we tried everything but just couldn't seem to get them to bite. I've never had good luckin kegonsa but it good that you seemed to get a few. Tight lines! P.S. the old guys in the trailer park cussed us out for being down the so look out! He said he was going to hook us or something Just a heads up.

For the person/s looking for bluegills for the wife & kids......We launched at Fish Camp Park today (Friday) about 10;30 this a.m. Never used the gas motor. Just used the electric trolling motor to move upstream casting floating rapala (runs about 12" deep) & caught a few LM bass. Went just above the Hwy AB bridge in the channel on the left side. Bluegills pretty quiet in there...they are there, just not hungry for wax worms. Crossed over to the other side & started using small worms...that's what they wanted...not grubs. We kept going back to grubs with very little luck, so we went back to worms...the whole worm too..they seemed to want a gob. You can buy them at the small trailer park/campground right before you get to the boat launch at Fish Camp Park. Small corks, 12" above the hook, 4-kb line. Fish right in front of and under the docks & between docks.... Very close to shore...Toss the bait close to shore & "jiggle it a little" or slowly reel it in, stopping occasionally. Caught a few LM doing this too (up to 17"). Not a "hot bite" but you could get a meal or 2 for sure...nice size too. I use very small corks & no more than a 1/32nd oz. jughead. Or just use a small hook with a small split-shot above it. Too big a jighead or cork & they just peck your worm away. For the folks who are worried about keeping bluegills which are guarding their nests....each female bluegill lays 5,000 eggs. Studies show that you do not want even 1% of them to reach maturity...otherwise the panfish in the lake would "stunt" (not enough food to feed them all). The other fact is that panfish only live about 7 years. So let's say that about 13% of them will die of old age...IF they max out their life (which most don't). So the number of fish taken by hook & line is almost Zero compared to those that are gobbled up when very small...or die of old age. Most of the panfish beds probably never get fished anyway...only those beds easily accessible & in commonly fished places.

Went out yesterday to try and convince some of those northern swimming the shallow to bite...no luck. I couldn't believe how many giant largemouth and even eyes there were in 2-4 fow on the north side. I saw one eye that had to be better than 30in just sitting on the bottom in 3 fow. My boat went right over him and he didn't even move. The largemouth seemed to be cruising but weren't interested in buzz, cranks, or spinnerbaits. Probably should have went to some weedless plastics. I ended up going to the river to catch some gills for dinner and ended up filling my livewell with black crappie. They sure were agresssive.

Took the wife out hoping to find her some fish, we haven't had much luck recently in the quest for gills. The lake was super rough and choppy for my 16' Jon so we had to find shelter from the wind. Once we found some calmer water the bite was on, she caught quite a few nice eater gills and a really cool black crappie, a 16" LM and a sheaphead. While she was battling blue gills I was busy slamming bass (easily 30 fish), the bite was definitely on and the structure comment from earlier definitely still holds true. The wife was happy I finally found her some fish.

ALL FISH RELEASED

very interesting, I'm glad that you said something because I'm not sure that's the general consensus amoungst most, it's the first I've heard that but it completely makes sense. Doesn't really effect me too much since I generally just catch and release, I haven't kept a fish in the last few years easily. Taking the wife out on the Keg tonight to hopefully find her some gills, it's her favorite fish to catch and we've been out a few times and haven't been able to locate them at all. Good luck to all. If anyone would be willing to PM me some gill locations that would be great, I usually fish bass but the wife loves catchin gills, and i'm in the doghouse and could use a bailout. Wont be keeping any.

Mike

In the 7 acre pond I fish the giant bulls are what guards the nests from other fish. Remove them and after what drops eggs nothing will protect the beds from egg predators, carp, suckers, other fish. I quit fishing them once the spawn nears. I've seen suckers attempt to scour the beds and the larger bulls are the only gills able to keep them out. Smaller males 6-7" size just are not big and aggressive enough to succeed. Do as you wish, but in my observations the big males should be turned back. My 2 cents on the subject.

was out this morning again same spot as last report. up river near fish camp. did really well again.

its been brought to my attention that i should not be keeping the male gills? is this common thought? i always thought i was supposed to release the females full of spawn (not much yet).

any thoughts?

After my seminar at the 2012 Madison Fishing Expo I sold data that included all the (at that time) current coordinates for cribs, rock areas, structure, etc. for all four of our lakes here (the data was on a CD). Part of the package included one year of free updates to the database. I now have the revised data available and have emailed it out to everyone who has verified their email address. However, I was unable to either correctly read (or the email address was invalid) some of the email addresses people had given me at the Expo. I want to make sure everyone who purchased the package gets their free update (it’s been over a year since the expo but these updates are still free). If you haven’t heard from me about this please email me at my personal address:

rk_diverXhotmail.com

* replace the “X” with the @ sign

I will send you out the updates. I’ve got the original handwritten sign up sheet so I can cross check and correct errors in the names/addresses list. I’ve been having (as others also have) issues with Lake-Links PM system, which I’ve notified them about a couple of times and have never received a response, so please use my personal email address. Thanks, Rick

first day out on the Keg this year! day actually started on Waebesa tried uper mud and main lake with no luck Left round 3 and went to good old Keg before i went home. tried all 5 of my main lake 'go tos' and nothing for weeds or fish. so went up yahara just past bridge and caught 20 nice gills 5-8inches in about an hour. fish are TIGHT to structure and the bite was LIGHT. little bit of work got it done. 7 males kept for dinna. 13 girls swam away. redworms

Fished the keg on saturday with my 14 year old son, we caught 20 bass. went for a cruse up the river and there were boats packed in the sloughs, don't know if they were catching anything, but with that wind, they could of been hidin from the wind.

Tried the river for white bass this afternoon. No luck. Still too early.