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Saturday, July 12, 2025 at 12:21 PM

Voyageur North Outfitters Weekly Fishing Report

I hope you all had a safe and fun 4th of July weekend, celebrating this great nation we have the privilege of living in. Hopefully your plans included getting out on the water with friends and family and wetting a line when you weren’t taking a dip to cool off.

Overall, despite the heat of the 4th, fishing was still pretty good for most. As per usual this time of year, the walleye are deeper during the height of the day, 12-20 feet and moving up a bit shallower as the evening sets in, 8-12 feet. They are still most consistently hitting leeches on a spinner rig, jig or plain hook; but they are also eagerly taking larger minnows, lite-pike under a slip bobber, in-particular in the evenings. For artificial, the trick is getting that crank bait down to the fish as you troll. A Berkely Reef Runner or Deep Hit Stick will definitely do the job. Soft plastic swim baits like the Walleye Assassin or Keitech swim bait used jigged or trolled is another great option. When trolling, work your way along long, steep drops and breaks, sunken islands or humps and wind breaks off points.

Lake trout are definitely deep. If you plan to troll for lakers, use lead core line and look for them in 40 plus feet or water. There are a number of outstanding trolling options for lake trout, Rapala Deep Tail Dancers, (Pink Tiger, Green Tiger and Purple Descent have been well performing patterns), Berkley Deep Hit Sticks, and large deep-diving Salmos.

If bass are what you’re after, not much has changed from last week. They are still hitting top water crankbaits, minnows, leeches and any number of soft plastic presentations. If you’re new to soft plastics for bass and would like to see what all the hype is about, give Ned Rigging a try. Pick up Ned Rig jigs and a couple of different variety of soft plastic to tip it with, Z-Man TRD Bugz, Z-man GOAT, (in green pumpkin), Z-Man Finesse TRD, (in green pumpkin Goby), or the Rapala Crush City NED BLT. For topwaters, of course the Whopper Plopper takes the cake, but many other options will work as well.

Crappie and big bluegill are sitting suspended at about 8-12 feet in around 15-18 feet of water in heavy cabbage. A simple crawler or crappie minnow under a slip bobber is the easiest approach, especially if your taking the kids out. Otherwise, cast a retrieve a Beetle Spin or put that crawler on a Thumper Jig.


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