Hi all! Sorry for the delay in publishing the first official report of the 2018 season. Too much fishing, work, and a 1-week vacation to Florida in between has resulted in very little available writing time for me. I have lots of information, stories, and incredible fish pictures to share from the month of May through early June. The week prior to season opener, I remember we were all freaking out about ice melt. Even I was getting a little concerned too, as Minocqua lake and many of the area's larger lakes were still completely ice-covered as of Monday May 7th. But even during the final stages of ice-out, options are always available as places opened up quickly and delivered awesome fishing immediately. Those big lakes all melted within a few days after, and we were already bass fishing on them immediately. Winter then led to summer, within 3 days. ^ First day out from storage. YAY! Unfortunately this winter did some serious damage to the bass populations on many smaller, shallow, weedy eutrophic lakes. Fish kills were reported all throughout the region and decimated the nice largemouth bass I catch from some of these lakes. Reports all over the place about fis