I started a 17 day fishing trip to the Vilas County area on Saturday. I left my Joliet, IL home at 6:30 in the morning, picked up my friend Paul at his home in Rockford, IL at 8, and was in Northern WI by 1:30. We unloaded the truck, launched the boat and we were fishing by 2:30. The main lake water temps were 57 degrees. It had rained Friday night and the front that followed was in full swing. Air temp was 60, with a 10mph wind from the north. I fished a milk run of offshore rock reefs that historically hold schools of prespawn smallies. We did not find the concentrations of biters I normally do, but there were a few on every spot we tried. I fished the new Rapala Shadow Rap mostly and my partner stuck with a Lucky Craft Pointer 65 which has always been the go to bait on this lake in the spring. Tired and hungry, we knocked off at 6 with 34 smallmouth and 3 largemouth between us. Nothing was bragging size. The lake I'm staying on is known as more of a numbers lake than a trophy lake which is fine with me. The weather forecast for the next few days is going to have falling temps and rain on Monday. No stable weather for a while.

That sounds like a great day, Scott!

what was the temperature in the coves? 17 day trip sounds amazing.

You probably could have dragged a football jig and got some big girls to bite. I'm from that area and free up fishing a bunch of vilas lakes. It's amazing up north. I currently love in fl and I dream of the day I could move back. Anyhow that seems like a great day on the water good job.

I find dragging jigs in deep water for just a couple of bites as exciting as watching paint dry. I have a friend who targets big smallies in the Vilas County area and is very good at it. I ran into him while I was up there and even he was struggling to get bites. The repeated cold fronts every few days for over 3 weeks just kept the smallmouth from getting active. The largemouth bite on the other hand, saved our trip. The cold fronts didn't seem to bother them much at all.