Another week of the 2026 open water season down. The beginning of the week it was hot and the bite was decent. It got cooler during the middle of the week and the bite got really good and then it warmed up again and I noticed the bite starting to slow up again. With some stable weather in the forecast and cool over night temps I think we will really see the fall bite start to take off!

To start the week we caught all of our fish on jigs and crawlers. Rock structure in 8-16’ that was close to deep water was holding fish. If it had a flatter sandy spot on it that made it even better! This bite got really good during the middle of the week and we put the hurting on some mixed bags up shallow.

As the week rolled on the bite was still good only the fish moved a little bit. We ended the week catching all of our fish in 28-35’ of water dragging lindy rigs. Minnow versus crawler didn’t seem to matter. Dragging a Lindy rig right at the bottom of the structure was key to catching fish. If it was a harder bottom it held more fish than the plain mud.
I pulled lead core for a little bit a few days this week with very minimal success. I know there’s still a respectable lead bite but it’s all but over for me and my clients. Smaller baits and slowing down has produced more fish than normal sized baits.

I think the fishing will be good from now through ice up and once we get some truly cold temps and the water temperature starts to fall we will really see some killer bites!