For quite some time I’ve been planning this trip to the Bruce/Ladysmith, WI area to fish a couple of rivers where part of my family is from. Beyond that Smallmouth Bass season is open in most of Wisconsin and closed here in MN so the decision was natural. I was joined by my cousin Dan Zelm and we started out day out at Flaters Resort . We proceeded to head up River to the Thornapple Dam then drift back down. That was the plan at least……
Once we got to the Thornapple Dam we witnessed a fellow Minnesotan play what turned out to be a 60+ inch Sturgeon. No doubt in my mind that was the biggest fish I’ve seen in quite some time. Moving on from that here was our game plan which is pretty typical for Smallmouth Bass on these types of rivers. Find a bank that drops sharply from 2 ½ to 4 ½ FOW then tapers off slowly, some slack water to boot, then throw a few boulders to the mix and you just might have yourself a winning bid.
Once we found the water we were looking for I thought for sure internally weighted tubes would be the answer. Wrong! We found that they wanted a nice suspending jerkbait and would often take the bait on the pause. My bait of choice was a Lucky Craft Bevy Shad 60 in Ghost Minnow. We ended the day with 10 smallies, the photos represent what the typical size was, they all were cookie cutter replicas of each other. We also had a couple pike and muskies to boot that decided to chomp on small jerkbaits. Needless to say I backoff the drag fast on these fish. Losing Bevy Shad’s is far too painful for me…
This last photo represents the bonus fish for the day. About a 40+ inch Muskie that just lightly grabbed onto that small jerkbait I was throwing. This particular fish was beat up from the spawn, I released it boatside without handling it as I didn’t want to cause undue stress to this tired mama. Muskie season for this area doesn’t open until May 27th so please remember to release these fish.
Nice report Al!
Man those Smallies are DEEP BODIED…they must have been scrappy! Sounds like a fun day!
I am heading up to Chequamegon wednesday I hope to get some nice pics to post!
nice repo Mike. nice to see those waters get a little ‘net time. what was the water depth like? water a little too cold for the tubes?
excellent report mack
looks like a great day and you can still catch em 
dont you usually eat muskie 
Thanks for the update Mike! I’m glad you had a good trip up here in my neck of the woods.
Steve,
For the most part I would say the average depth of the Flambeau between Flaters and the Thorneapple Dam is about 2 FOW with several long stretches of riffle with just 4-6 inchs of water flowing over the top of rock/rubble. Deep holes on the Flambeau seemed to be few and far between. The Chippewa structurally speaking for this area is quite different. Several deeper holes, heavy timber, sandy, and with less boulder structure compared to the Flambeau.
The water temp I thought would be perfect for tubes at 62F. I did catch one on a tube, the rest were chasing jerkbaits. These fish I think were just starting their spawn for 06′. These two Rivers are very scenic.
Above was my bait of choice.
Great looking smallmouth’s Mike!! That will help hold me over until tuesday!!
I will have to add a couple of those Lucky Craft lures to my arsenal for my July trip.
those smallies look like a completely different species to what I catch on the ‘Croix.
Here’s a pic of a fat 16″er that my buddy caught by mistake on the Turtle Flambeau flowage opening weekend.
Looks like a good time Mack! Thanks for the report.
Finally this coming weekend is Mn Bass opener and I will be on the upper Miss come Saturday morning bright and early!
Great report Mack! God, those fish are chunky!
that one on the bottom right looks like an absolute toad! 13 inches and 2.5 lbs? Nice fish!
Nice report and Fish Mack.
When we going Smallie fishing???
Mike,
Nice report and pic of those fat BASS.
bonus Muskies, (great idea on the water release)
super day trip.
Jack..