[Adrift Alone]

Fall fished Delevan twice over the last several days with some really good quality out there now. Nothing like summertime for numbers, but who cares when the quality is so good, right? Over two trips (several hours each) boated four fish over 20". Fat, fat too. Most all fish caught exceed 4 pounds, of the 20's the biggest was 5 lbs. 10 1/4oz. Yesterday had a 5lbs. 8 1/2oz. fish on my third cast. They just wallow like fat thugs in that cool water!

What I have learned this Fall is "patience." I crank and crank and crank and then boom, big fish. Not a single buck this Fall. Temps are hovering around 50. Best depth is 15 feet, but seems to vary a little day to day, so experiment.

Looking for a "7" so I'm gonna continue to try to find her until water drops to 45 or so and then will wrap it up for the year.

PS>> If you're a nordern guy, go into the south bays; they are full of pike. Twitch minnow bait and hold on. Caught a few for fun yesterday in about 30 minutes, because sight fishing nordern in November seemed really cool to me.

Good luck,

AA

[Adrift Alone]

Second trip to Delly this week was less than super. By sounds of other reports though, maybe I did okay? Fished 2 till 7pm, caught 5 largies (biggest 18"), 1 smallie and 3 nordern (biggest 35"). Caught fish in 12-18ft. on drop shots and cranks. It was a tough bite though, as fish werre not schooled. Weather and the company made the work a joy as winter is just a month away.

Hang in there....

AA

[Adrift Alone]

Fished Delly this afternoon from 3 till 7. Water temp was 63. Fish were pretty active, especially nordern! Caught 5 while fishing bass, biggest was 30, smallest was 24. Had a giant (38+) eat a buck bass next to the boat, very cool cuz he ripped him right off my hook in clear view.

Bass were good too though. Caught 6 with biggest being 19". All bass nice and fat, the Fall feed is plumping them up. Bass were caught in 17 to 20 feet. deep green weeds. Back later this week for more.

Did I mention, finally great weather .

AA

[Eric Haataja]

Nice job fishing has been awesome this year on big D!

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[Adrift Alone]

Fished last afternoon and evening for bass with great success. Drop shotting weed edges again in 11 to 16 feet. When you find one, you find more than one . Pound those areas! Got on one school last night that lead to 6 fish on six casts. Wonderful evening to be out and totaled 24 fish. Not many bucks, most fish 15 to 19. Two fish over 19".

When it is clear and calm I stay away from cranks. Wait for the clouds and or winds then crank em up.

AA

[outdoorbradley]

i go out today fishing for panfish and bass. caught a bunch of bluegills in keepers size, and some crappies in mix, they bite everything i have. then i tried for bass, only got one on deep divin rapala shad crank, a nice 18 inches bass, and about 4 pounds, only one. none other bite. where they go? or i do something wrong? i casting near docks, shores. with varey of cranks.

[Adrift Alone]

Fished last late afternoon and evening for bass with some success. The past few weeks have been so good that I was hoping it would never end, but like all great things, they tend to change. Not that it was bad, but the 5-6 fish per spot things is over I think. Did two things yesterday, deep weed edge for 12 fish (drop shot). Cranked deep for one fish. All largemouth from 12 to 19 inches. (Too many "nordern" as usual too.)

Next time out I will start probing deeper looking for the late summer into Fall bite to begin.

Not too many gamefishermen out there. Now I know why everyone was chasing gills and crappie. BTW, those are still biting well from waht I saw being caught and all the deep water marks on my graph. Look deeper for bigger fish... Good luck!

AA

[outdoorbradley]

I and 2 others people go out this morning fishing at Delavan. caught a bunch of bluegills, also get few crappies in mix. bluegill bite in both at top of water with bobber or just inches off bottom, but most big bluegill in bottom. caught them on variety, redworm, nightcrawler, leeches, even few bite on minnows. all 3 crappies caught with minnow, but when i fillet them, found few grasshoppers inside them. i thinking about maybe go catch some grasshopper next time go out.

wonder if people have better luck with crappies?

[NOBADDAYS]

Fished yesturday with all the waves n jetskiis still did well on gills deeper water with waxies n split shots on bottom thanks to linked Brian n fiancé keePin us on da fishes!!!

[Adrift Alone]

I look forward to the July full moon period every year. Haven't been able to fish much this week though until last evening from 5 to 9 pm. Drop shotted weed lines and hammered largies in all but one of my spots. Caught 20 or so. Many fish over 17 inches (about half) and big fish was 21 inches (weighed 5.2). Many damn northerns too. Hate those things.

Really made the end of my week with the "perfect" weather. The bite on D is every bit as good as people are saying so get out there before summer peak starts to wind down. Good luck!

(PS>> Saw old timer out there hammering them too. Guy just fishes and fishes and fishes! You know its good when he's out there "fun fishing." Call me next time, E, I'll fish with you. I'll bring the beer...)

AA

[Eric Haataja]

Fished the past several days out on Big D. and the bite has been very good for us, all three trips we caught as many gills as you want, along with some nice legal eyes each trip, plenty of pike and some decent numbers of bass so it has been a very consistent multispecie bite as of late. Catching alot of fish as of lately!

The reason I like this lake so much is that you can go out and have good success on nice panfish, some great action for bass and pike, and some days you can smack the eyes. This cold weather has not made existing weed beds clog certain area's and it also bunches/congregates fish up so in my opinion it helps in smaller clumps of existing weed beds, basically that means they are schooled up now and are easy to catch if you can find the right clumps of weeds.

Casting cranks over the weeds has been awesome (Xr-50's and Strike king cranks) fishing weed edges has been good for eyes and pike but I've also caught eyes and pike as deep as 32 feet of water during the day. Either with live bait, trolling super braids with small cranks, or snap jigging. Some bass are out deep as well but most are still up in weeds and under docks (ecspecially certain docks).

Panfish are hitting gulp leeches, leeches, waxies and red worms 4 lb test, and a ratso or plain hook has been very conisitent, there are still gills spawning. Also many gills have spawned so there also out deeper starting to suspend out over main points, PAY ATTENTION to your graph when you see suspended gills then fish high for them by casting spoons like Musky mod or drifting over them with a carilinia rig 1/8 ounce weight or split shot and hook, slip bobbers as well. Many different ways to catch these gills it's been pretty easy.

Also as of yesterday I can tell you that there are still bass spawning on beds along with gills, caught several that I saw sitting on beds, this is one of the latest spawns I can recall in 15 years. We fished today as well but I did not fish shallow and yes the fishing has been great! Happy 4th of July I'll be back after the traffic slow down next week.

[Eric Haataja]

Fished 3 days out on Delavan this past week weds, Fri, and saturday and the fishing was very good each trip out. 2 trips clients just wanted to fish for blugills and both trips clients limited out with nice gills in the 8-9 inch range but most bigger fish we kept were perfect eaters in the 8 inch range. Gills came on custom spin and jigs ratso (red) with a spike of waxie we also caught some gills with small chuncks of crawlers. Casted hairs jigs on the deep weeds and picked up a few crappies as well, this is the time of year where the crappies move deep so I do best trolling 1/8 ounce jigs on the weed edges and you'll pick up fish here and there but the crappies are not really worth keeping in my opinion just a bit too small, next year they will be perfect 10-12 inch eaters.

Several of the area's we fish (10-15 feet of water) we caught walleye's while gill fishing. Lots of walleye's showing up on some of the weed/rocky area's in good numbers along with some bass and pike. The deep weed bite is starting up pretty good now.

I also had a client from oklahoma that wanted to just fish artificals and we caught 11 pike and 18 bass, mainly throwing mid level cranks in and threw the weeds but he did pick up a 35 incher on a top water bait early in the morning. Action has been very consistent ofr all species of fish. We still caught gills full of eggs so not all have spawned.

Dragging suckers on the deep weeds should also be consistent but suckers keep going up in price so we have been catching gills (smaller gills) and just fishing with them when need be and have been doing pretty good pike fishing with floats down 12-15 feet with a circle hook or dragging them behind the boat with a 2 way swivel and 40 lb floro leader with a 3/8 ounce weight. Stopped in and talked to the New Owners at the bait shop across the street from the boat launch they seem to be very helpful and awesome new owners! I'll get some pics up heading back out on the water in a little bit good fishing all! Good Luck!

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[Eric Haataja]

Fished Delavan this past week and did pretty good on bass, smaller crappies and decent gills fish the weeds and weed edges in the 4-10 foot of water. The worm, senko's, and top water baits have also been hot early and late up shallow, zell pops being the best for me. Still fish spawning up on beds and post spawn females are starting to utilize rock/weeds. Pike were jitting on deep weeds with suckers, swim baits and cranks in 15-22 feet of water.

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[toyman2k]

few other pics

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[toyman2k]

Ok did good today fishing early for largies then moving on to gills by 8. Bass wee had were caught using top water baits and wacky rigged yum in green biggest just over 17 drifting 6fow and gills shallow 3-4fow and yes bass still on beds too. kept 1 limit between the 2 of us. Water temp 71.6 I will have to get me some of them XR50's

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[Eric Haataja]

Fished Monday this past week and the fishing was very good we caught walleye's smallies largies, and pike. Saw many crappies spawning up in the weeds as well. typically on a normal year most of these fish are up on beds but there's still a lot of pre-spawn bass out on the lake. We focused on weeds out from spawning area's in 6 feet of water and when you found the schools of fish you could really load up quick. As far as cranks go the best bait was a XR 50 lipless crank bait these are now some of my new favorite cranks absolutely love them, it will take time to get confidence in cranks but when you get the crank bite dialed in the big fish love-em!

We ended up with over 30 gamefish in a 6 hour trip all on artificals. The walleye bite during the day has been consistent along with bass and pike.

The eyes were tearing up cranks ripped over the weeds in less than 8 feet of water, all our fish have been shallow in the 8 foot depths or less. Bass are in spawning mode and the main lake spawners should set up this week with the next warming trend. plastics such as yum dingers have worked well either wackly or Texas rigger I prefer Texas rigged because they are weed less. We also fished last week and 2 days out on delavan we boated 27 fish and 33 fish in 6 hour trips with a mixed bag of pike, eyes, smallies and largies. Mainly casting cranks and plastics best of luck this season.

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[BigMusky]

Hit Delavan yesterday and it was a tough bite for me. Part of that was wasting time looking for weeds! The spots with obvious weeds had high concentrations of fisherman...so I went exploring to no avail. Could not pattern fish on anything other than frogs in the slop. They must have been only fish no one has thrown a lure at this year! Came away with couple bass and pike...caught them on swimbaits, senkos, frog and swim jig. Big bass was 20+ inch 5lber... probably could have eaten the pike. I wish I had fisher more efficiently, but that is part of learning. I had never been on Delavan this early in the year. There are crappie and gills EVERYWHERE. Saw bass under docks that I think were sleeping because they would not hit anything.

[Eric Haataja]

Made it out on delavan this week and we did so so for fish, ended up with 6 eyes, 10 pike and 9 bass. Missed several other bass including 1 giant prespawn bass that was 22+ incher probably right in the 6.5 lb class or better. snapped a client off at boat side on a crank bait. So if you catch a giant bass with a red crank let me know! Sucks loosing big fish but he caught his firest few eyes on delavan and some pike and nice bass so all went well. Cranks, jerk baits, plastics senko's all worked. I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow.

[Eric Haataja]

Nice job Dean and thanks for the reports!!

[deno b.]

Fished the south side of Delavan this morning. Caught some nice eaters, nothing real big. No nine or ten inches, just nice fish for the frying pan.

Between a few guys we kept about 50 gills, and a few crappies mixed in. Sure was fun. Its a nice change to get away from the trout fishing. Hope to get back there soon. Good fishing.

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