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.

July 24, 2016 Sun

2PM-930PM- Scott and myself musky and bass fishing
Location: Potters Flowage, Jackson County
Weather: (1455) W9 G16, 87 °, partly cloudy, 29.85
H2O: clear, normal pool, 80°
Caught: Myself: 2 musky 33 & 38”, 2 LMB 17 & 18”
Scott: 2 musky 33 & 34 “, 5 LMB (2) 20-21”, and 3 dinks

Observations: It is definitely mid-summer time on the flowage up here. The weeds are fully developed and the water is quite warm. In fact, the fish even felt hot.

It was a great day for muskies. We hooked four of them and landed everyone. In the musky competition I beat Scott out size wise. But in the bass category he had bigger fish and he also beat me in the numbers category. The bass up there are really impressive size wise, but the numbers seem rather low.

July 22, 2016 Fri

July 22, 2016 Fri 6PM-830PM- bass fishing by myself
Location: Mississippi R. pool 7
Weather: (Approx.) Hot, calm, 90 °, clear
H2O: 10.02↑, 91 kcfs, 82°, main channel and sloughs dirty and weedy, water in the mud lake area is clear
Caught: Not a dang thing!
Observations: The water is very high and quite dirty. There is also duck -weed everywhere. I would imagine that is caused by all the nutrient laden wash off from the land.

The fishing was tough; I never even caught a fish. I did hook into a couple of bass while throwing a frog, but both got off before I could boat them.

July 19, 2016 Tue

530PM-830PM- myself, Dick, Ike and Oz pan fishng
Location: Mississippi R. pool 7
Weather: (1753) S8, 86 °, clear
H2O: 9.06↑, 79 kcfs, 80°, dirty with lots of floating weeds
Caught: Bait: a few small perch and one sheep head

Observations: The water is once again high! The woods are starting to flood up by Trempealeau and mats of duckweed and celery grass are everywhere. Heck, we even saw a very large tree floating down the main channel.

Well this week it was Dick’s grand sons opportunity to do a little boating, swimming and fishing. Ike knew what to expect but Oz had never been on a boat ride before. Oz was quite crabby when he got to my house but those tears soon transformed into smiles once we were under way in the boat. The fishing was very tough, as was expected with the high water, but we all had a good time!

July 16, 2016 Sat

July 16, 2016 Sat 7PM-1AM- flat head fishing with Scott
Location: Mississippi R. pool 7
Weather: (2053) S8, 74 °, clear
H2O: 7.31↑, 62 kcfs, 76°, dirty with lots of floating weeds
Caught: Bait: bluegills and perch, Scott: 1-7lb flat head

Observations: The River is quickly rising and it is full of junk.

Scott and I both wanted to get out before the rising water made it hard to catfish, but we were too late. The high water has stirred up the weeds and made fishing very difficult. We had three bites tonight and only caught one fish. I broke a fish off on a snag at 1AM just before the storm hit. We did have a pretty good light show on the way in and fortunately for us the rain was not too bad.

July 15, 2016 Fri

July 15, 2016 Fri 530PM-910PM- bass fishing by myself
Location: Mississippi R. pool 8, Goose Island
Weather: (1753) E5, 77 °, sunny
H2O: 6.45↑, 51 kcfs, dirty, 78°
Caught: 2 LMB 16-17”, 1 pike 20”

I was back to Goose Island hoping to once again capitalize on the frog bite. The frog bite was non existent, but I did catch a couple of fish using a jig along the slough banks.

July 13, 2016 Wed

630PM-830PM-fishing with Dick, Nora and Jose
Location: Mississippi R. pool 7, Trempealeau area
Weather: (1753) W14, 84 °, sunny
H2O: 5.97↑, 44 kcfs, clear, 80°
Caught: Lots of perch and bluegills, Dick kept approx. eight perch and four bluegills.

Observations: The River is in great shape, but that is going to change within the next couple of days. There has been a lot of precipitation in the upper portion of the Mississippi River watershed and all that water is coming downstream.

Tonight was a night of fun fishing with Grandpa Dick and his granddaughters Nora and Jose. I had a lot of fun with those two girls. Nora got very good at setting the hook. She actually out fished grandpa Dick by about 30:1. Jose was so cute, she was just content to watch and throw the little ones back in. She has a great amount of patience for someone who is only four!