Lake Monona (Monona Bay)

[gonefish'n]

Hit Lake Monona this past Friday, 6/16 and pounded the bluegills. South shore in 1-3 ft. of water. Bigger gills came on chunks of nightcrawlers. All gills kept (except one were egg less) and over 7.5"s long.

gf

[Eric Haataja]

Thanks for the report! I bet there were some ski's really close by..:)

[AllEyes]

Was in the area last week so I stopped in D&S Bait to shoot the .... with Gene and pick up some spikes (saves me about $10 a thousand over Dick Smith's). Only second hand info, but he said the gills are thick on Monona suspended over the deep holes. Also mentioned guys picking up a few ski's trolling through the schools of gills. Perch on Mendota weedlines were going, and also gills on Waubesa. Last summer while perching on Waubesa we'd easily go through 200 gills to get our 50 perch...everyone was getting them, and I'm they're there this year. That was just south of hog island. Stop in at D&S and Gene will put you on fish. Good Fishing.

[Eric Haataja]

Nice to see an informative fishing report! I heard the same about the chain and now is the time for the big summer pan fish.

Thanks and look forward to more of your reports!

Eric Haataja

[AllEyes]

Here's Gene's number at D&S for anyone looking for an up to the date report. It's an automated hotline...he'll usually hang on to his info for a couple days before it goes on the hotline, but it's still pretty good and always accurate. 608 244-3474

[fishsnot]

i fish a monday night bass leaque, we fish monona, waubesa, kegonsa, rock river in beloit twice, and ripley and geneva once.....my partner and i have finished 2nd both times on kegonsa, 3rd on waubesa once and brought in fish 1st time on monona and 1st time on waubesa.....on waubesa and kegonsa we have gotten all our fish in the river system...on kegonsa it has been from the entrance to the river to just past the AB bridge.....on waubesa it has been from just before gilligans island to the beltline bridge.....we have been getting everything on senkos.....i fish mine wacky style, 5" watermelon has been most productive, buddy has been fishing 4" cinamon brown, he runs his texas style, unweighted, but on a normal hook.....getting most fish out of the reeds, looking for reeds with gaps in the weeds in front of them, almost like a cave affect.....have thrown bunch of other baits like buzz, spinner, frog, poppers w/ very little success....but with worms staying strong hard to put them down.....we fish monona a week from monday, will post how we do

[Eric Haataja]

Fishing is going pretty good with gills 7-8 inches and a few bigger and smaller lots of sorting but lots of action for kids as well, crappies up high in the water colum. Best bite is the first 2 hours and last hour.

Marshall Park on Mendota has also got a lot of giant gills in the park and univerisity bay should be going good anyday now.

Eric

[Eric Haataja]

Lots of giills snapping first couple hours of the day and last couple hours, crappies are in the top 4 feet of the water colum and there's a good early and night bit for the crapppues not many people fishing for them either.

Eric

[yatch]

[B]Fished Monona Bay in front of the beach house, then later in the morning the west end of the bay. Found the best action later in the day
10am -2 pm on the west side of the bay.
The fish became very active yesterday you could fish half way down in the water colume (4-6) and they would come in from all directions. Spikes on horizonal jigs worked the best. Every once and a while we would ice a 9" gill but most were 7 - 8". The crappie were active as well but all around the 5" mark. We took home a meal and just released the rest for another day.

This was about the most active I have ever experienced ice fishing for gills. (Of course I ice fish only because the water is froze and the boat won't float.)

Maybe a lesson to be learned here? Full moon,and a front moving in? Could it be. /B]

Tight Lines,

Yatch

[Hunter5]

Went up to Monona Bay on Tuesday 3/6/2007 and caught around 20 good eating size gills. Had to work for them because of the wind. This should be a great weekend for gills. Get them while you can Spike are my bait of choice.

[Fishin Medic]

You can also find the crappies right under the ice right now. Fished the bay on Sunday and had numerous crappies and occassional gills jump on the bait just as it cleared the bottom of the hole. I am amazed at the number of 1-3" gills the bay has in it this year. I fished plastics all day and had no one color that produced better than another.

[meicjos]

I'm new here and trying to get into fishing this summer because I live right across from Monona Bay. I was wondering what to do to get started. I have a rod and license, but I'd like to know what kind of bait to use for certain fish and some of the best places to start. I'd be happy with any suggestions. Thanks for any help.

[cmontiho]

Send me an email and I'll hook you up. I went to school out there and have the panfish pegged. cmontiho@mclario.com Huge crappies loom in Monona. Huge.

[Eric Haataja]

Gills are going pretty good lots of sorting but some nice keepers in the 8 inch range and a few bigger, plastics wdgies and ratfinkes. Also a good bite in Cherokee marsh for panfish some nicer fish. Mud Lake should be going any day now for some big gills and some crappies.

Not sure about University bay but that's where the big gills hang on this system. I'd bet a lot of the smaller channels on Mendota are hot now, like hatch cover etc...

1st and last light is typically best but with the snow white colored ice which makes things darker, fish might bite betterl all day.

[Fishin Medic]

If you're looking for a place to take a kid to learn to ice fish Monona Bay is the spot. Found fish in every hole that I had drilled. The problem is finding them big enough to keep a few. Caught 50+ yesterday all on plastics.

[Fish247]

My buddy Curt and I hit up the small triangle Saturday. We caught hundreds of gills and a couple of crappies. We sorted and kept 40 between 7.5-8.5. The camera was key to keeping the little guys off when bigger fish would move in. The little ones would eat it no matter what but the bigger fish wanted it motionless. Homemade micro spoons and marmooskas took the majority of fish both tipped with 4-6 spikes. Saw a couple skis on the camera as well.

I caught one BIG girl pushing 10in.

[Fishin Medic]

Nice gill. How was the water clarity in the triangle? I found it pretty cloudy just inside the bay.

[Fish247]

Clarity was good. I had my camera down about 14 in from my hole and probably 3ft away from my buddy's and we could both see our baits. I love using that camera even the little ones are fun then! I could see the bottom in about 8 fow if I concentrated.

[romepond]

Had a fish on every time down most were small took home one good meal.:D

[joey13]

went out thursday and you really had to sort through the tiny gills to catch any decent ones. did catch some decent crappies along with some small ones just before light on glow jigs just below the ice. Caught some monsters at mendota when i decided to get out of midget city.

[Fish247]

Went tho the bay Sunday with 3 friends. We should have stayed around home and gone to Nag or somewhere. One of the guys with us caught 6 Keepers and the rest of us caught a mess of little dinks. Even the little ones hardly ate the bait, they would just peck at it and drop it. We used the camera for a little while and didn't even see any nice fish. Everyone we talked to said the same thing. I moved around all over the North triangle and drilled I'll bet 30 holes and didn't get one keeper. I think I may stay away from here for a year or two untill the little ones grow up.

[BigMusky]

they never grow because everyone takes them out as soon as they are big enough to fillet.

[Fish-N-Time]

Was out 2/3/08 3pm-5pm caught around 45 fish 7 fish for the frying pan. 3 were gills and 4 crappies. Purple ratfinky with red spikes. Bite started out bottom 2 feet and ended about 12-18" under ice. Just keep moving around.
ice was about 14in.'s thick

[Fish247]

My wife and I went to the Madison fishing expo on Sunday(it was ok) and went to the bay for a couple of hours when we were done there. My wife just wanted to catch fish. We did that for sure. We sight fished the whole time and I never saw a fish over 6 inches. I take that back, we saw a few muskies swim through. Lots of little bitty gills and a few small perch. We fished from 1 til about 3 and then headed to Johnson creek outlet so my wife could spend money. There were guys keeping fish but no real numbers and nothing real nice.

[yatch]

A friend and I went up to Monona Bay on Monday, really a nice ice fishing day, sunny, upper 20's and lite winds. I usually hit this several times during the winter and in past years we always have come up with decent 7-8" gills. This year I have not gone there because of all the reports of potato chips. Since lakes go though cycles I figured Monona is just getting ready for the future and small gills are the future.

BUT, the weather is really good for ice fishing, why not give it a shot. It took us awhile but to my suprise the fishing was great. 25 keepers up to 8.5" and the bigger fish are heavy with that dark blue look.

Just like real estate, location, location, location.

Time for some open water browns now.

Yatch

[yatch]

We went back up to Monona Bay again today, What a place, caught fish all day, 8 am till 2pm kept about 30 over 7".Only one 10" crappie. Only a few guys out there. Fun Day. Anyone else out there in big fish land on a good local gill bite?
I have also been out to the Nag. Kettle and Labelle but the action has been slow and the fish small. Thats all I know. :D

Yatch

[Sig and Gus Hanson]

Hit Monona Sat 9/27, sunny mid 70's, WSW wind up to 10 mph, water temp 70 degrees. Didn't find anything deep, for that matter we didn't find anything more than 10 feet from shore all day long. Caught about 50 pumpkin and bull gills, many in the 8-10" range. Picked up a few Largies plus about 10 very strange looking fish.

They had the markings of a gill, but the mouth of a largemouth...all about 8-10" in length, and the weirdest thing was every single one of them shook/shivered when we were handling them...very, very odd, don't know for sure what they were...some kind of hybrid??

No digital camera on board to post pics to help answer the question.

[TEAM ICE HOLE]

late report: took the boys out, age 9&6 on christmas eve morning, to try out their new ice combos, they caught atleast 100 gills, but there was only 1 keeper per 6-7 fish, most gills were 6-7" with the larger gills ranging from 8"-8-1/2" was a blast watching the boys kill them. we used purple gill pills with 2 red spikes.

[Skeeterzx185c]

Went out with a group of friends on friday. The action was non-stop all day. All 6 of us took home nice limits. If you get a chance to head out to the bay it is worth the trip. Fished the north triangle in 10 ft of water with nuclear ants tipped with waxies. Lots of little fish mixed in but the action was a blast

[Sig and Gus Hanson]

Heading out to Monona Thursday, anybody have any reports they can share?

[Sig and Gus Hanson]

Hit Monona Thursday 5/21 early morning for a few hours....main lake water temp 60, WSW wind at 15, sunny skies.

Got to tell you about one of the coolest looking things I've ever seen on a lake while fishing....we were fishing the mouth of the one of the canals off squaw bay and picked up a couple bass on minnows and we decided to move up into the canals and creep along. Once into the canal, water was gin clear and at any given second we could look around the boat and see huge schools of gills and mutiple bass cruising slowly around the bottom. Most of the bass were 10-12" but we did see plenty of big pigs....many HAD to go 5 or 6 lbs. Even had a tiger musky and a spotted musky cruise by us, both were well over 40", also saw a small tiger musky just sitting in a sun pocket right up against the retaining wall. Didn't catch one fish in the canal though, they weren't there to feed it seemed. Also saw something about the size of a basketball ( whiteish in color ) running along the bottom of the canal, no idea what the heck it was. Water temp in the canals was 65 degrees so I suspect the fish were staging in there getting ready to spawn?? Can anybody confirm if this presumption sounds right??

We hit a few different spots the next couple of hours without much luck, finally found a spot during the last hour on the water where we picked up 4 LM and 24" pike ( on spinner baits ), that was the fattest non-legal pike I've ever seen. Wish it would have been legal, would have been some nice thick fillets.

If we wouldn't caught a fish all day the canal experience would have made the trip worthwhile. Anyone heading out to Monona this weekend would be well served to creep through the canal if they like to see wildlife, it's a sight to behold

[Finseeker]

Took my little guy out for his first bass outing and my first time on Monona. We hooked up with several smaller bass including my sons first unassisted bass on artificials which turned out to be one of the bigger fish.

Fishing 5" Yum Dingers over the tops of the shallow weeds worked well. We also got some love on top waters later in the evening.

[NOBADDAYS]

ok late report from sunday. fished in the crowd started in 5fow quickly moved into around 8fow not the best luck did manage a limit to take home between 2 of us. finicky biters and you need a decent spring bobber to detect em. out of the shanty worked better than in they must like the light the hole produces below. fished right off the bottom all gills and w/ waxies tried gulp and nothin doin thanks for all the reports really helped out!!! Merry Gillmas oops mean xmas! and 7a was waay to late for a spot in the lots either one....
ICE DEPTH WAS 8-8 1/2 inches in the holes i drilled:D

[Eric Haataja]

Thanks for the report Roger!! Sorry I can not make the New years Party :-((

[Finseeker]

Went out on Sunday morning early. We had lots of action when the sun came up with several doubles. We caught well over 50 gills, 1 crappie and I would say about a dozen small white bass.

No world beaters but a decent average and plenty big enough to eat. When I came out of the shack I couldn't believe how many shacks there were around us. It looked like a Trap Attack Tournament