Pewaukee Lake Wisconsin

[James M]

Hi,

 

Has any of you fisherman tried fishing Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin this year or anytime? This lake is just 20 miles west of Milwaukee and I am thinking of taking my nephew fishing who lives in the Milwaukee area fishing at a lake near by. I searched on the web and link link and this lake is over 2000 acreas big with one boat ramp. I never even been to this lake yet and may look at other but if anyone wants to share adive or their experiences feel free to respond. I would like to go there around late July to early August since I will be fishing in northern Wisconsin this June 19th through the 26th.

 

Thanks,

 

James Martin

[Steve S.]

Used to go up there a lot when my brother still lived in Illinois. I believe the boat ramp access is on the west end / west half of the lake. From what I recall, the east bay is shallower and we didn't fish it much.

 

Started trying out Pewaukee because it always showed up in the In-Fisherman Master Angler awards every year. It is the lake that we both got hooked on musky fishing after losing numbers of spinnerbaits and large plastics (I think they liked the 5" and larger Mar-Lynn Reaper Worms on swim heads) one day while fishing for largemouth. We used to catch some nice bass in the neckdown area between the two bays. In Fall, we seemed to raise a lot of musky along the north shore, drifting back and forth from the neckdown area to the boat ramp. I can honestly say that although we raised and fought quite a few musky, we never got one to the boat, though I think we caught some small pike.

 

Good luck. Its always fun trying out new waters. Try searching the internet a bit for more tips. I'm sure you'll come up with more than I could offer.

[dansgonefishing]

I lived just north of Milwaukee for 5 years and Pewaukee was one of my favorite fishing lakes. It is a great multi-species lake. As mentioned in the previous response it has become very well known for it's Musky fishing. Half the lake is very shallow, the other side has a nice deep central basin. The lake does statify during the summer. I came upon a panfish pattern that resulted in some of my best fishing days in late summer. I was drifting along out from the edge of the shallow end of the lake with minnows hoping to catch some crappies. I was getting solid hits but the when I set the hook all I would get back was a very badly mangled minnow. They were very agressive bites, not like a crappie hit.

 

It turned out that very large bluegills set up just above the thermocline over the deep water. I switched over to worms and waxies and the catching was non-stop. It seems that the deep basin has a mud bottom with a lot of insect life and the bluegills are holding at the thermocline eating the pupae as they drift towards the surface. I did not have a good depth finder at the time but I am sure that these fish and the thermocline would show up on modern electroncis. The fish were suspended between 10-15 ft. down over what looked like an empty lake bottom.

 

Enjoy your day on the lake!