Hayward, Wisconsin Fishing Report 7-2-13

I spent a very enjoyable morning on the water with Doug Kelley and his 12 year old daughter Emma from Cedar Rapids, IA.  Iowa has been well represented as of late!  Our mission was to just catch fish.  My favorite!  We started out targeting smallies on a sunny, cool, and flat morning.  Water temps dropped to 71 degrees overnight.  We landed several small males on wacky worms that were holding on the first break along rock and sand shorelines.  Your’s Truly also missed several fish on a topwater bait until I eventually realized that the front treble hook was missing.  Brilliant!  Larger fish proved to be a bit difficult, so we moved into some weed flats from 5′ to 10′ of water and landed several largemouth.  Emma also had a brief but exciting battle with a large pike that engulfed her bait at boatside.  She did an outstanding job learning how to work her worm on a spinning rod, and by the end of the morning she was casting, setting the hook, and reeling in fish like an old pro.  We wrapped up our morning by landing a few bluegills in shallow bays.  I found it interesting that there was very little spawning activity.  Everything still seems to be about three weeks behind schedule compared to previous seasons.  Something to keep in mind.  Best of luck to all 4th of July vacationers.  Be safe!