Fishing near La Crosse

I’m getting up to La Crosse on Sat. to do some fishing and was wondering how the bass are hitting? I used to get out on the river all the time, but since I moved to Madison, I haven’t been able to get over to pool 8 much. Just wondering if smallmouth or largemouth are very active yet on pool 8. Any help is appreciated, and thanks in advance.

Have you checked previou posts by Greg, Hoosier and Mossboss? They are regulars of this forum and they fish bass in the la crosse areas quite a bit. Sounded to me like the smallies have been starting to really pick up. I havent run across any yet but I havent been out much, too busy with EFN duties and website tasks. Sounds like the river is going back up a bunch again so keep that in mind for the weekend.

Well, apparently all right. I talked to a guy I know that was in the Team Supreme tourney last weekend, and the winning weight came out of north of here…I think Trempaleau area…some 24 lbs. of fish!! From my experience, I would say avoid areas with fast current. I’m heading out Fri. night and Sat., too, so we’ll see what’s going on. (Weather permitting) Keep an eye on this board…I usually drop a line and b.s. and compare trip notes after a day of fishing. I personally like flooded grass if the waters high enough yet. I’ll probably look for slack water water areas and large current breaks. There’s a few shallower wing dams I might fish as well. The one I fished last weekend had a lot of current going over it and seemed pretty devoid of bass.

Well, went to La Crosse to fish on Pool 8 on Sat., and my plans fell through. Guy I was going to fish with wasn’t able to go, and I had things to do later in the evening. So, I ended up having to fish from shore for only a couple hours. It was wet and cold, but the bass were hitting good. I fished some backwater rip-rap that had a little current flowing by it. Caught a mixed bag of 12 smallies and largemouth. 4 quality smallies between 15-18″. Other smallies and largemouths were pretty small. Also picked up a bonus 22″ walleye that was pretty nice. Caught on a variety of plastics, worked slowly. Had to let a senko worm sink almost all the way to the bottom before a nice smallie hit it, and of course lost the biggest one that I had a-hold of. All in all it was a good day on the water, and wished I could have gotten out in a boat, because they were hitting pretty good. Good luck to you.

Wow! That’s pretty good! We did very well Friday. Found some spawners tucked in behind a wing dam…had 6 bass in about 15 yards. 2 were over 18″ and a good 3.5 lbs.–fat with eggs. Plenty of stripers, too. What color senko were you using? I have a couple bags of them, but haven’t thrown ’em yet. Just got in today from a couple of hours of goofing around out there. Some dinky largemouth and one nice smallie…backwater rip rap in Pettibone boat club harbor. Had a big northern, too on a spinnerbait off some flooded grass.

Had ahold of the big smallie on a watermelon senko. Sounds like you’ve been hitting pretty good. They sure are fat right now! Real fun to catch. All the largemouth I caught were small also, and could only get smallies of any size. I caught many of the fish on a brown tube with chartuese tail, but they seemed to be mostly smaller ones. Caught the larger fish on senkos and flukes fished really slow. I really miss fishing the river more often, I just have to get used to the lakes here in Madison. Good luck to you.

Bassthumb:

I lived in Madison for three years, and know a couple of real good spots if you want to give me a PM sometime.

Don’t know what size boat you run, but you should give Fish Lake, Upper section of Lake Wisconsin, and the River a try below the Sauk Dam. Spent the last 8 years down there before moving back to LAX. Did pretty well on the smallies and large mouth on those boddies of water. If you want to make the trip, try Lake Redstone and Dutch Hollow up by Reedsburg. Some very good bass fishing in those lakes as well, not to mention the walleye fishing in Redstone.

Thanks for the tips guys. I have tried Crystal Lake, which has good numbers of largemouths, but not much size that I’ve seen yet. Also tried below the Sauk dam for walleyes earlier this year before the river went way up and did ok. Just have to get out there and find new spots on these lakes. Am going to fish in a wed. night bass tournament on Waubesa this week, so we’ll see how that goes. Keep making reports on how the fishing is down in La Crosse, because it’s always nice to hear how it’s going where you used to fish. Good luck to you.