Up-North Bass'n

Greenfield’s own, Jim Weber, with a monster bass. Okeechobee, Castaic, Lake Fork??? No, Forest County, WI. Ya, up-north bass fishing is off the hook.

When one thinks of Wisconsin’s north-woods lakes you think of… Walleyes…. and Muskies, right? That’s still true. The walls of restaurants, bars, gift shops, lodges, casinos, grocery stores, Laundromats, gas stations, real estate agents, post offices, emergency rooms, and even churches have a stuffed walleye or musky hanging somewhere. OK, maybe not the churches, but I bet one of them has one. The Howard Young emergency room even has a show case full of lures that they have extracted out of peoples hide over the years. Quite a collection!
What you normally don’t think of when you think of the great north woods is Bass fishing. Big mistake! Over the past 10 years I think I have finally had it with the mediocre Musky fishing and lousy walleye fishery. For reasons I won’t get into, those two species are taking a beating up there and it’s not from the fishermen. Nuff said!

What has quietly developed up there is a bass fishery that is about as good as I have ever seen. And I have lived through the hay-days of lakes like Eagle Springs, Beulah, Lulu, and Okauchee (Okauchee is still good!). For years I thought to myself, I am not going to drive 300 miles to go bass fishing. But I think I have started to wear down and think, why not. I love Musky fishing, but mid summer vacations just don’t lend themselves to that and the bass keep biting.

I fish a lot with my niece and nephew while on family vacations and this year was on the legendary Lake Minocqua, now one of the finest Bass fisheries I have seen. This year we decided to take one day and see if we could catch 100 bass in one day. The strategy was to work the shallows with plastics for the smaller fish, strictly looking for numbers and not worried about the big-bite that day. I knew we needed a big start that morning and we got it. We got started at about 5:30am and when we returned to the resort at 9:30am we had boated 45 bass. A great start and just what we needed to have a shot at this.

The afternoon got hot (temperature wise) and this shift was the twins, Andrew and Ava, and I. It was a much tougher bite but we managed about eight or ten. I returned to the lake by myself late afternoon to scratch up another 10 or so amongst the wake-board boat rollers (my new enemy…. Don’t get me started). We needed a huge evening to pull this off and didn’t get it. We caught bass with consistency, but not the pace of the morning. The final tally ended up at 79

bass!

Now, we fell short of our 100 goal, but when you think about it that is still a pretty great fishery. Could it be done…100, yes definitely and that’s pretty incredible. Don’t overlook this option if you vacation up there. Generally small bass in the shallows in big numbers and bigger fish out on the deep weed edges. You can’t beat Senko type worms in the shallows. On the deep weed edges, 5” swimbaits, jigging spoons and deep diving cranks like Bagley Diving B 3’s (DB-3). If you focus on deep water you can find bigger fish. The numbers will fall, but the quality is out there.

The Big-Lake:
OK, I’m not going to get into this now, but let the games begin!!!! The water is cool, the salmon (and trout) are in, and probably here to stay now. While nothing is a sure bet, from here on out, there are fish in the area and opportunities to catch them. More by the end of the week on this.

Random observation that has nothing to do with fishing:
Two cast members of the original movie Predator went on to be US Governors. Now who woulda’ thunk that in 1987??? Just more proof of the awesomeness of that movie…..;)

Tight lines, smooth drags, and get down to the lake.....

Marc