July 31 thru August 5 2016, musky, bass and pike fishing Hayward, WI

Location: Chippewa Flowage, mud and Callahan Lakes, Tiger cat Flowage, and Spider Chain.

Weather: (Avg.) 80°, sunny, light winds, storms Sunday and Thursday mornings.

H2O: Chippewa-relatively clear but dark, Mud and Callahan-relatively clear but dark, Tiger cat-clear, spider-clear. Temps. 77-83°

Caught: Myself: small mouth bass, large mouth bass, pike and one walleye

Observations: The Chippewa is relatively devoid of off shore weeds. The winter draw-downs have definitely decimated the mill foil. It is nice without the milfoil but there is not any other weeds taking its place. Fish need weeds to thrive and if there are no weeds I believe the flowages fishery is going to deteriorate. Also the large mouth population has plummeted, the catch and kill policy on these fish needs to stop.

Fishing the Chippewa was once again quite difficult. I did find some smallmouth on the south east side, but that was it for the bass. I never did catch a large mouth and from what I heard very few were caught. The Muskie’s once again eluded me, but I did catch some smallish pike. I did not fish this body of water too hard, mainly because I did fish some other lakes on account of the frustration factor of fishing it.

Mud and Callahan Lakes were tough fishing. I did catch a few pike and one 31 incher, but I did not catch any bass nor did I see any Muskie’s.

I did fish the Tiger Cat flowage twice and enjoyed it each time. The first time I caught a good number of bass and pike but I did not see any Muskie’s. The second time I lost a couple of very large bass and saw two Muskie’s. Andy also was along on this trip and he lost a decent musky at the end of the night on a creeper.
I fished the upper lake of the Spider Chain and caught a few hammer handles and saw two smallish Muskie’s.