Lake Vermilion early July fishing garnered mixed results as for many groups the July 4th holiday week was more about family time, boating and relaxation. Lake Vermilion was hopping and the Tower parade, as always, received high praise. We had easy success on smallmouth bass and those that targeted walleyes found them anywhere from 2 to 24 feet. We caught walleyes really shallow on leeches and artificials, catching a good number that were big enough to release. There were several walleyes caught over the 20″ mark, and more recently “eaters” are making their way to the fish cleaning shack. The mayfly hatch continues to hang around, with a large hatch in Everett Bay last week that seemed unusually late.
Not much attention has been directed at muskies yet, with those fishing them seeing but not catching. Northerns have been caught as well, primarily in the weedy bays.
Some of the decent walleyes our guests caught last week include: 29″ James Mast, 27″ Steve Appel, 24″ Martin Magrum, 22″ Kristine Magrum & Steve Appel, 21.25″ & 21″ Dave Gooden.
The largest smallie caught was a 4 lb by Jeff Cutler.
This week things have been a bit unstable as the weather has created quite a bit of uncertainty. We got around 1.2 inches of rain in less than a 1/2 hour on Sunday evening and spent a good bit of Monday watching the weather screen as dark skies hung around much of the day. Today looks to be an absolutely perfect day with a nice forecast for the remainder of the week. Hopefully these mayflies will call it a year and we can move on to the main lake walleye humps and fantastic muskie window just around the bend.