Milwaukee Harbor

I am heading to the Milwaukee area for the holidays. Anybody have any advise on fishing the Harbor? Would love to hook into a big brown trout or a monster king.

Probably one of the best early winter bites that I know of. The harbor has been doing much better than the power plant.

1/2 oz blades in white, pearl, or white/chartruse

jig/fluke or Gulp. White, pearl, white/Chartuse, baby bass, smnoke/gold fleck

Live target Gizzard shad 1/2 and 3/4 oz & Rainbow smelt silver/blue

Chrome rattle traps

And I’ve been experimenting with the pulse-R’s and doing pretty good as well

How do you fish the harbor? Do you fish the walls or just cast like you are walleye fishing? I would like to do it this winter.

That sounds like a ton of fun

When all else fails, guys will hand troll or set up the heavy artillery and troll. The recent storm and stiff north winds dirtied up the water, so fish will be scattered.

Discharge wall, Fish from top to bottom and watch your locator. Find the shad, and fish 2 to 5 feet below them. Vertical jigging, cast/crank, cast/jig. With the EXTREME amount of publicity the winter fishing has gotten, expect it to be a zoo. Especially in the community spots. Last time I was out, I ran down to the power plant for the morning. We boated about about a dozen fish and had about 25 boats wanting to play bumper cars with us. Packed up and headed north. Dumped in the harbor and about died. Way too many boats along the discharge wall – much worse than the Power Plant. Guys tied up, guys like me trying to hold the boat and vertical jig, and guys trying to troll amongst us.

Had the same issue with the North and Main Gap. A lot of fish about 200yrds out from the Main Gap, but trying to hold the boat to vertical jig with 15 other boats and another dozen guys trolling through us got real old. I left and hit the South Gap, not as many fish or people, but at least I was able to keep my sanity.

Now with single digit temps, most guys will put their boat away and it won’t be nearly as bad. Need this cold stretch to continue with very calm winds to get Summer Fest Area & Mckin to freeze up. Should be a fantastic winter though. Much more isolated balls of shad roaming around compared to a couple of years that the harbor was just plump filled with bait.

BTW – Great White Pulse-R on a 1/4 darter head with a 3/0 Gamakatsu is becoming a sure thing!

just watched gillespie and thats where he was fishin last week with guide brian setterle (sp?). good show.
they jigged blades and gulp near a break wall and caught some nice browns and a bunch of big lakers, which they threw back cause they were out of season.
didnt see any other boats. it was choppy with snow turning to rain.
looked like fun, though

camera man did a good job on watching the landscape.I was out there while they were filming

Thanks for all the tips and PM messaging!!! See y’all on the water……or ice

Chiapet