5/4/25. Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. As I always say it's all about the weather. This opening weekend was the first two good weather days in a row since we got back from Fl. the last week in March. Saturday morning dawned cloudy with temps in the low 30s,and a slight breeze. Undaunted by this our group of 11 anglers in 4 boats headed out just before. 6:00 AM. With the annual Biggest Walleye, Biggest Leagel Fish, and Heaviest Total Bag tournament and bragging rights at stake we fished 3 different lakes. At the end of the day it was interesting how the catches were different according to the lakes fished. My son Jeff and a tag boat went in search of big Walleyes and were the runaway leaders catching and releasing a total Walleye count over a dozen Walleyes with 5 between 25 and 27 inches. My boat finished second after I picked one of my favorite lakes west of town known for producing good numbers of eater size Walleyes and Pike. We never boated a Walleye but we did have 6 Pike in the high 20 inch range largest being 27" and 2 Perch, giving us Largest Legal Fish and Heaviest Total Bag @ 20.7 pounds, the fourth boat boat loves to fish Pan fish and their lake choice produce a dandy bag of 10 dandy Crappies, largest being14", and 1 Perch. It was the best opener we've had.
Sunday was a totally different story, starting out 10 degrees warmer, clear mile high blue skies and no bleeze. Our 3 lakes that produced dandy catches Saturday sent all 4 boats back to the house at noon with our tails between our legs. The highlight of the day goes to my grandson Lawson, he caught a beautiful 30 inch Musky. Quoting my old friend and famous Musky Guide Tony Rizzo "WEATHER TRUMPS EVERYTHING".
That's it for now folks good luck fishin' and remember "KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD
DAVE LANG
4-30-25 Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. Only three days from the opener, our lakes are open the water temperature on Lake Minocqua this morning was 45 degrees, and water levels at The Willow are at 3.6 feet from full, this is well within normal levels.
As always Dianna has headed to Chicago for the weekend turning the Lang house into "A FISHING CAMP". The group will beginning arriving Thursday evening with the entire group getting here in time for dinner Friday evening. At last count it looks like the group will be between 12 & 15 fisherman With a group boat count of 5 or 7 we will split up Saturday morning hitting 4 or 5 different lakes. Most of the boats will return to the house for lunch . then head back out for the afternoon with at least a couple of boats planning to fish the Minocqua Chain for the rest of the day. History dictates that we have a fish fry Saturday evening and awards for Biggest Walleye, Biggest Legal Fish, and Heaviest Bag . That means there is pressure on the group to have enough fish to feed 15 hungry fisherman and for bragging rights. It's always a good time and we have never had to buy chicken to feed everybody, but there could always be a first time.
That's it for now folks, good luck fishin and remember
KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD. DAVE LANG
11-13-24 Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" 0n Lake Minocqua. I made it official bringing the 2024 season to an end. I took the boat into the shop to have some needed maintenance done to get ready for the 2025 season.
My season was suppose to end with Bob, Steve, and Jose, the Northwoods Ford guys from northeast IL. This was to be a 3 day weekend centering on fall Walleyes. We did get our first day in catching a half dozen Walleyes. But once again the weather took charge and brought an end to their weekend with heavy rain for the next two days. It was a strange fall when it came to Walleye fishing with spoty action from day to day. Even though I didn't have any clients booked for the rest of the year I continued to check out some of my usual fall Walleye spots with a couple of average days and one morning where the action was so hot that I had my 3 Walleye limit and one 17 1/2" Walleye that had to be released because it was too big, I also missed a few bites in less than an hour This was on a lake where I had been struggling to catch any Walleyes. I did catch fish after that day but the bite was more normal like you would expect. That is how my season ended. With that in mind until next year. Thank all of you for fishing with me this year .
KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD.
DAVE LANG
10/30/24 Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. My year is quickly nearing it's close, As always, it is all about the weather, and we have been having an extremely warm season with temperatures 10 degrees above normal. Meaning that my usual deep water Walleye bite has been nonexistent.
Last week I had the pleasure of fishing with Ralph Mork and his wife Stephanie. We headed out to one of my favorite fall Walleye lakes. These are eater size Walleyes not wall hangers. As fall comes to the Lakeland area the Walleyes in this lake relate to rock humps coming out of 30 feet raising up to 15 feet. Ralph and Stephanie had a good morning and at the end of our trip they had 7 nice Walleyes in the box and had released a couple of smaller fish. A good morning by anybodies standards.
This Monday I fished with Michael Anderson and his girlfriend Wendy. This was an unusual frip in that they were not interested in going after Walleyes but Michael wanted to learn how and where to fish Lake Minocqua in the spring. Michael will be coming back to Minocqua next May to spend 4 days fishing on the Minocqua chain. That being said, the goal was not so much how many fish we could catch that morning but where I thought the best spots would be in May and what presentation I would use. I was fortunate and we caught fish on the first 3 spots we fished then spot number 4 failed to produce, however we were rewarded with a fish on the next spot. When the goal is to show you as many spots as possible, when they would catch a fish, instead of fishing in that area, we would move. Because of time limit I left Lake Minocqua and went under the trestle into Lake Kawaguesaga to show Michael a half dozen of my favorite spots over there. As happens, some days even though the fish were active in Minocqua the fish in Kawaga were dead quiet. We never had a bite over there. I hope he has faith in the areas we fished because there could well be days when he is fishing here in May that the fish in Kawga will be most active and the Minocqua fish will be dead. At the end of the morning we had a mixed bag of Pike and Bass and everybody caught fish. Most importantly, Micheal came away with a good basic knowledge of the lakes and my favorite presentation ominnows on weedless jigs in weeds 6 ft to 14 ft deep. Another good morning.
Tuesday Mike Heroux came back up here for his last trip of the year. Mike is skilled and an avid Pike fisherman so we headed out to the reservation to one of our favorite lakes. Mike loves jig fishing, weedless jig and minnow combinations, and I fished spinner baits. Our first surprise was that even though we were fishing our favorite Pike water our first 5 fish were Bass. We moved to a different area in the lake and Mike caught our first Pike. Our day continued with a mixed bag of Pike, Largemouth Bass, and Smallmouth Bass. The fish of the day was a beautiful 32 inch Pike that Mike caught, he also caught a nice 17 1/2 inch Smallmouth. A good day.
Today it was back to Walleye fishing. with Tim Grittinger A cold front was scheduled to come in midmorning so I was hoping for good action early in the morning. My wishes were granted with Tim catching our first Walleye in 5 minutes. Tim continued to be the hot hand catching one Walleye after the other. Then came what every fisherman fears. When I finished netting a fish for Tim and I realized my rod and reel were gone, it happens. I am a fanatic about not just leaving your rod out with the line still laying on the bottom unattended. As I said Tim had the hot hand that morning catching all of our Walleyes and he continued hot when he hooked my rod and reel and bringing it up to where I could grab it. NOW THAT"S "LUCK".. We had been fishing for two hours and Tim had put our two man 6 Walleye lake limit in the box and had released a couple smaller fish. We had a couple of hours left so we decided to switch lakes. The cold front was coming in by the time we got to lake number two. We fished 1 and 1/2 hours without a bite and called the day a success. Not sure if the lack of action was due to the lake or because the front came in dropping the temperature 10 degrees in the time we were out there.
I look forward to 3 days fishing with a group of guys from the Chicago area next weekend and then possibly one more trip with my friend Bob Stanko before my season comes to an end. That's it for now folks good luck fishin' and remember
KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD. DAVE LANG
10/13/24 Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. Last week was my annual Canada trip with my sons Jeff, David, grandson Lawson and the rest of the guys bringing our group to 8. All of the group were there to fish Muskies except David and I.
A hint of what kind of trip it was going to be came when I was one car from the border and David asked me about "what kind of passport do you have and I realized I had my expired passport from 3 years ago when I had to renew my passport. Getting ready for this trip I grabbed it by accident out of the filing cabinet. With no option but to drive to the window and hand them the passports I had. After a little discussion, they let me in. It lead to 5 days of more than a little worrying on my part about what would happen when I was at the US. border trying to return. Once again the person checking was very understanding and let me through.
The next challenge was the weather, We were able to fish Saturday afternoon only catching 2 Smallmouths and 1 26" Walleye. The wind had been building all afternoon. By 6:30, with the wind building to 35+ miles per hour, the decision was made to take the boats from being tied up to the dock and load them onto the trailers and get them off the water. We listened to the wind howling all night. In the morning we were met with 3 to 4 foot rollers coming down the lake in front of our cabin. The forecast was for the wind to be going down by mid day. We finally got the boats back on the lake at 1:00. that afternoon. It was barely fishable and nobody could get to the spots we would have liked to fish, so once more it was poor fishing. The next morning dawned our best conditions we had seen. My boat was targeting Walleyes and for the first time we were able to get to good areas and by noon we had our 2 man limit of 8 Walleyes . Lawson joined us for the afternoon and we caught enough Walleyes for our 8 man fish fry . Tuesday was our last day. We were greeted with a wall of fog so thick you couldn't see 50 yards. Luck was with us and the fog lifted by the time we were ready to head out. It turned out to be the best action we had. By the end of the day we caught 7 Walleyes, the biggest being 28-1/2 inches, and one 38-1/2 inch Pike, and between 30 and 35 Smallmouth Bass. A great ending to a challenging trip.
I had a trip booked for Saturday morning, so I hit a couple of deep water lakes looking for Walleyes. Both trips were just over an hour and both were strikeouts. Saturday morning I was fishing with Bob Stanko his son Jeff, and grandson Al. I decided to fish a lake with rock humps topping out at 15 feet. Jeff boated our first Walleye in the first 15 minutes out of 19 feet which was a surprise because the last time I was out there every fish came from 20 to 25 feet deep. We hit a half dozen humps catching Walleyes on all but one. A half hour before our 4 hours were up, Bob boxed our final Walleye to make our 12 Walleye limit. It was a great morning and we all look forward to fishing together again. That's it for now folks good luck fishin' and remember.
KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD. DAVE LANG
The next challenge was the weather, We were able to fish Saturday afternoon only catching 2 Smallmouths and 1 26" Walleye. The wind had been building all afternoon and by 6:30 with the wind building too 35+ miles per hour the dission was made to take the boats from being tided up to the dock and load them onto the trailers and off the water. We heard the wind howling all night. We were met with 3 to 4 foot rollers coming down the lake in front of our cabin, with the forcast of going down by mid day we finally got the boats back on the lake at 1:00. It was bearly fishable and no bobody could get to the spots we would have liked to fish so once more it was poor catching. Moning dawned our best conditions we had seen. My boat was targeting Walleys and for the first time we were able to get to good water. and by noon we had our 2 man limit of 8 Walleyes
10/3/24. Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. This will be the fishing report that doesn't have any fish to talk about. Two weeks ago I thought I had a cold when my wife Dianna said I needed a covid test. Surprise surprise I tested positive. Step one was contacting 4 clients and canceling trips that were in the book , followed by telling people looking to book a trip that I wasn't able to book any trips for a while . I am feeling fine after a few days of relatively mild symptoms and getting ready to get back on the water. Even though I could have gone out on the water alone I chose to make preparations for when I can get back to guide jobs.
I am ready to head north to Lake Of The Woods for 4 days fishing with my two sons and grandson and a small group that has been making a fall trip together for years. My son David and I are planing to fish Walleyes, grandson Lawson will join us some of the time and then spend time with his uncle Jeff and the rest of the group that are die hard Musky fisherman in search of a 50 inch Musky.
I will be getting back to Minocqua middle of next week and getting on the water. This is the time of the year that I will pretty much be devoted to fishing Walleyes. I always tell people that we will be fishing for eater sized Walleyes not wall hangers. We will be vertical rigging, some of the easiest fishing there is. The lakes I fish are what the DNR calls size exempt , anglers are allowed 3 Walleyes per angler, no minimum size , but you are only allowed 1 fish over 14 inches. I my opinion these are the best eating fish you can get. I will concentrating on three lakes. On two lakes the Walleyes will concentrate in the deepest water they can find meaning we will be jigging as deep as 50 feet, on the third lake the Walleyes relate to underwater rock humps coming out of 40 feet and rising to 15 feet, The Walleyes will start shallow and as water temps drop they will work their way deeper. I encourage you to give this fishing a try, I think you will find it rewarding. That's it for now folks, " good luck fishin" and remember Keep your line tight and a bend in your rod. Dave Lang
/24/24 Hi from the shores of "Kennedy Bay" on Lake Minocqua. As always in life it is the simple truths that are most importaint "it's the weather stupid". Watch the weather conditions and
set your goal accordingly". With temperatures running 10 degrees above normal most of this month. Also remaining above normal are water temperatures, depending on the lake; water temps ranged from 68,8 to 71.3.
This is my favorite time of the season. The Walleyes are getting into their fall patterns. For the most part these are eater sized Walleyes, not wall hangers. One of my favorite lakes where the Walleyes relate to under water rock humps that produces early Walleye action. These fish are in 20 to 25 feet. I am fishing with 1/4 OZ Jigs tipped with large Fat head minnows. I am placing the hook in the mouth out the gill then passing the hook back through the back half way down the body. Hooking the minnow this way puts the barb back further insuring more hookups.
My other action is coming from one of my favorite Pike lakes out on the reservation. Spinner and chatter baits continue to be the best producers. Even when I switched to Redtail chubs on one trip they were still out produced by spinners 4 to 1.
The next step in the fall Walleye
progression will come when the water temps take a big dip and the lakes get to the turnover. Walleyes will then seek out the deepest water in their lake so we will be jigging in 40 t0 50 feet deep.
For a good over view of the last few weeks action look at the photo section to see how results varied from trip to trip, That's it for now folks good luck fishin' and remember
KEEP YOUR LINE TIGHT AND A BEND IN YOUR ROD. DAVE LANG
9/5/24. Hi from the shores of "KENNEDY BAY" 0N LAKE MINOCQUA. It has been an interesting week for me. Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of fishing with Steven and Robin Wachuta; they are grandchildren of my late wife and my best friends from 48 years ago when we lived in Appleton. Whenever you spend 4 hours in a boat with someone you've never met before there is always some interesting conversation but this was altogether different and one heck of a lot of fun. But on to our fishing, we headed out to LDF to one of my favorite Pike Lakes. The goal was to catch enough fish for a family fish fry for two generations. At the end of the morning they had 8 Pike in the box and released others including the biggest Pike of the day.... 30+" It was a great morning.
My son David and grandson Lawson came up to fish with me for the Labor Day weekend, always a treat for me. Our plan was to fish Lake Minocqua on Saturday morning catching enough fish for a fish fry. We met our goal putting together a nice mixed bag of small Bass and Perch, but we had to work really hard spending a lot more time on the water than I would have expected. Sunday we shifted gears and went out with the plan of releasing everything we caught. We had a great morning with a total mixed bag of Pike and Bass, a total of twelve fish. My grandson Lawson came up with his new secret bait ( the chatterbait) that he was going to show me up with. I give him credit, he stuck to his guns even though his dad and I caught more fish, he didn't give up (he did catch more on it than I did on jig and minnow combination however.) Monday morning they only had a few hours before they had to head back to Stoughton for Lawson's football practice so we went back out there. It was the day of revenge for Lawson and his Chatter Bait out fishing his dad and I, five to one. Yes I went out and bought some Chatterbaits proving you can teach an old dog new tricks.
This morning marked the first time in my guiding career that I went out to fish with clients without having minnows in my boat. Trust me it was a hard decision for me. I was fishing with Anthony Patanella and his wife Jackie, we had fished together for the first time early this spring on the Willow Flowage. As always fishing with jig and minnow combinations, putting together a nice mixed bag of Walleye and Pike. This morning only using Spinnerbaits and Chatterbaits we headed out with catch and release fishing in mind. We had a great morning boating a dozen fish including a 19" Smallmouth and a 28" pike.
You can see why to start this report I said it was an interesting week for me. Any of you that have been reading my reports for years will remember that it was one of my clients that brought Spinner baits on my boat years ago and after seeing how well he did that day compared to jig and Minnows that day I have always had Spinnerbaits as one of my favorite options. After having Lawson bring his Chatterbaits this weekend they have earned a permanent place