fishing reports Yellow Lake Fishing Reports near Webster, WI

[Nathan6]

Does anybody know what the ice is looking like on yellow? or little yellow? any info would be great. Thanks

[DonBo]

Was up there Saturday. Open water around the shoreline. The ice looked like mush, I gotta believe with this rain and wind and continued warm weather that it will be gone by this weekend.

[Nathan6]

Thanks for the report. might be heading up there this weekend if the ice is ready to go. thanks

[DonBo]

Just got a phone call from the shores of ICE FREE Yellow Lake.

Game on!

[DonBo]

FINALLY made it up today. My first open water journey of the season. The boat worked fine, I still remember how to tie knots, and we left with a couple nice meals of crappies.

It was a classic early season bite. Waited till the sun came out and the water started warming. Picked a shallow muck bottom bay on the downwind side of the lake. Found fish in 3 - 4 FOW. Although I did catch a couple on plastics, today they wanted crappie minnows. A red hook seemed to put more fish in the boat than anything else.

All in all, a pretty productive first trip of the year.

Couple interesting notes: There were some weeds almost to the surface already. Of the fish I cleaned, less than half were females. Those that had spawn looked to be still a ways away from having those eggs mature. Even though we are having a very early spring, and the water is warming, (up to 54 degrees today) the fish are still not ready.

The docks are not in yet and the water is really low, be carefull at the ramps. Also the sand flat on the Little Yellow side of the bridge is very shallow, don't attempt this without your motor tilted WAY up.

[packman]

thanks for the info DonBo. i am fairly new to yellow but is it a more of a lindy bite or jig bite early season.

[DonBo]

You gotta be ready for whatever they want. Early walleye season I've caught them right up in the shallows trolling rapalas or bobber fishing with minnows or pitching or dragging jigs. I've also caught them on lindy type rigs with crawlers in much deeper water. Ya just never know from one day to the next.

I hope to be up there sometime during the next couple weekends to try for some more crappies, but will miss the opener as I'll be down in your neck of the woods chasing turkeys.

[packman]

thanks for the info Don. i will be up fishing the next 3 weeks hopefully i will find some of those crappies. good luck with the turkeys

[DonBo]

packman, we'll have to hook up sometime. Always nice to know your neighbors and share fishing reports.

[DonBo]

Almost certain I'll get to fish sometime this weekend, probably Sunday. Anyone else gonna make it up?

[LoonASea]

The boat is all prepped and bags packed ,,Im headed down to Yellow fri am to check out the crappie bite before the opener on saturday ,,,Good Luck to Everyone else thats going to be fishing Yellow Lake ,,,I will be trolling small rapalas on the flats by the mouth of the river

I do plan to check out the damage from last years storm with a cruise along the shore the landscape sure looks different from the road

[DonBo]

I'll miss out on the opener this year. Turkey hunting this week, so unless we fill out early, I'm gonna have to wait till next weekend to try and figure out the Yellow Lake eyes. Good luck!

[Jarrid Houston]

Good luck both of you, I think we are changing it up and hitting LCO for a first. we will be on Yellow the weekend before 4th of July though. Hope the big bluegillz can be found. Love the opener!!!

[LoonASea]

The weather wasnt perfect,,, wind came from a questionable direction ,,,but the fish didnt care ,,,This had to be one of the better openers on Yellow I have experienced in quite a long time ,,,It seemed like every one was catching fish slip bobbering, live bait rigging , jigging or trolling all put fish in the net and there is a dandy few year classes coming up that will bring me back

Hope every one that got out had similar luck

[DonBo]

Yep, I had been turkey hunting and didn't get on the water till late in the afternoon, and even in a cold rain the walleyes were very willing to take a bait. With all the 13 and 14 inchers last year, I was bit surprised at all the short ones we had to sort through to find some keeper size fish, but as LoonASea said, that bodes very well for the future fishery.

Sunday was a different story. A couple guys I know did very well early on slip bobs while I struggled with jigging and rigging. Water temp was right around 55 and felt much colder when I fell in while rigging my lift for the first time of the year.

[prophet]

staying on the river,will be there before dinner,plan on hitting river,little and big over next few days,also kayake and fish the st croix on wed,hopefully the fish are willing to cooperate,will give an update later in the week...

[Jarrid Houston]

My cousin, and uncle crushed on the giant gills, and had there limit of eyes in like only a couple hrs time.. I heard the bite was hot. Looking forward to June 28

[packman]

we also got into the jumbo gills, no eyes since we were more into the drinking thing, did see one guy with 10 crappies that filled his whole stringer man they were big.

[DonBo]

Walleye fishing was tough for me this weekend. The howling winds didn't help much. Got one Fri pm trolling small Rapalas. Got one Sat am backtrolling with a crawler. Got another Sun am casting a jig and minnow. All were 18", all were taken in about 7 FOW.

A friend did much better bobber fishing with leeches and fatheads. Guess they just didn't want the bait moving as much as a still presentation this weekend.

We DID however get into some of those big black crappies, man was that fun! Most were in the 10" - 13" range. Nice! All taken in 3 FOW, all on bare hook and crappie minnow or small fathead. Only two that we cleaned still had spawn in them so sorry, but probably by the time you read this it'll be over. Shoulda been here yesterday.

[lance95]

Hey DonBo and Packman I have a camper at Whitetail Wilderness. We fished yellow on opener for walleyes and did great. We will be out this weekend saturday for walleyes and sunday for gills(She don't like walleye fishing)so I NEED to find them if you know what I mean. Any help with the finding them would be great. Maybe see you guys on the lake I'm the big guy in the little ugly boat but hey i'm fishing

[DonBo]

Hey Lance, I'm not much of a gill guy, but I'd think if you checked out the weed edges in any of the bays that you'd find some pannies. Also there's some cribs along the north shore if you knew where to find those. Good luck!

[Sonnys]

Hello Fisherman of Big and Little Yellow Lake. I'm new to this web report. I've fished Yellow Lakes since 1950. I'm from Omaha, NE and usually fish there the first or second week in June. This year due to scheduling conflicts, I will be there June 23-30th. Not sure about the walleyes during

late June. Will they be at the mouth of the river in Big Yellow, Becky's Bar? In early June I usually find them along the weed line in 7 to 12 ft of water. Also, what is going on at Yellow Lake on June 28th? Is there a scheduled tournament? Appreciate your feed back.

Ed "Sonny" Svoboda

[DonBo]

Hey Sonny, welcome to HSO! I'm thinkin' that your timing should be good. IMO, July is prime time here, and I believe we are maybe a week ahead of schedule. You can almost always find fish along the weed edges, but I think by then the bigger fish will hold a bit deeper. 10-16 would be my guess. Stay tuned as I'll try to keep everyone informed.

Some wild weather up here this weekend. Howling winds this morning is why I'm typing this and not on the water. Also, I may need to charge my battery after running the bildge pump for so long. Jeez it rained hard last night!

Managed a few walleye the last couple days, but was overall pretty slow. Severely unstable weather all week makes finding a pattern pretty tough. My fish all came from about 10 FOW, all on leeches.

Intersting that I never caught a short fish this weekend, everyone in the boat met the 15" minimum size limit.

[Sonnys]

Thanks for your reply. Do you fish Big Yellow more that Little Yellow?

Last year we caught most of our walleyes in Little Yellow.

Appreciate it if you will keep me posted on how things are going on both lakes. Also, do you know anything about an event going on at Yellow Lake

on June 28th?

Sonny

[DonBo]

Sonny, I mostly fish Big Yellow, but would like to try Little a bit more often. Maybe when you're up we could exchange a few secret spots?

Not sure about the tournament you're asking about. There used to be a big Lions Club Musky tournament about that time of year, but it was canceled last year. I'll keep my ears open though and let you know when if I hear something.