Greg and I headed out again to Delavan, WI because we were afraid that the marshy Lake Puckaway would be too shallow to fish. Historically Greg and I end up going on the worst weather days, so why should today have been any different. The forecast was for heavy thunderstorms and rain. The storms came in the evening last night and continued until we launched the boat. Not a bad sign. We looked out over the lake and saw a mild wind give the water a slight chop and the sky was completely overcast. Just what we wanted to see with the clarity of the lake being to at least 12 ft. High hopes and a few tips from the master local guide Todd Berg from Into The Outdoors and we felt confident that the day was going to be one for the record books.

We started off in the channel and caught a pike and a LG mouth and headed over to the north shore and bagged another of each. On the trip prior we moved into the northwest bay and found only shallow water. Todd sent us to a deep hole which I found with fresh cabbage on the second marker buoy in the bay. I had a nice pike follow to the boat and lost a few fish, probably bass. The wind died and we found ourselves in a glass bottom boat. We headed to the northwest bay at the Island and found our spot from last week unfishable and covered in weeds so we went to the other end and found beautiful cabbage growth and milky water.

Greg caught a couple pike on a homemade large silver and burnt bronze spoon. The largest was 31″. We slid over to the south part of the Island to find several fishermen slinging the area so we pulled out in the deeper cabbage edge just outside the mouth of the bay. I put on a shallow yozuri stick bait trout color blue and lost a fish on the first cast. We worked several other deeper areas with new cabbage growth that looked to be the mother lode with no results. The deep cabbage that runs along the new orange and white condos looks awesome but no fish today. We tried the north bay again outside the harbor and caught a few more fish on spinners and slid back into the channel.

The sun was now high and we put on our sunblock wondering where the perfect overcast weather had gone. I caught a nice largemouth bass on a Heddon crazy crawler if you can believe it. I also caught another one on a popper and Greg finished off the day just before the launch with another pike on a spinner bait. We worked hard for a total of eight bass and twelve pike. For us it was a so-so day considering some of the days in the spring where we slay’d ‘em. After talking to three guys from different boats at the launch that were skunked we felt much better about our day. Enclosed are a few pictures of our trip.

Mike McNett
Excerpted from an e-mail that Mike sent out to a handful of friends.