Chippewa River Wissota Dam to Chippewa Dam

Aanother good thing about the river is each year it changes. Trees move around, sand bars come and go, gravel bars become sand etc etc. I really like the Chippewa.
Steve

Yes, its very fun to fish, especially where it runs through EauClaire. There is always different spots to fish.

Just thought I would tell you the landing on the river in Chippewa Falls is still iced in. I’m gonna try to fix that this weekend.

Krisko, Just so your aware….upstream from the dam in Eau Claire is off limits to keeping eyes except during normal fishing seasons. Below the Pope & Talbot dam they are fair game all year with a 15″ size limit.

Hey Brad, yeah thats what I like about that here. You can fish that stretch of the Chip all year long and keep just about everything except sturgeon and musky.

Alvin, below the dam in EC, its open all year.

AM what part of the Chippewa were you planning on fishing, down the lower end towards the Miss or up towards Eau Claire? If you go up by EC I’d recommend going with someone that has been on the Chipp. up there. With the Chipp. at a normal/low level there are certain areas that even with a RP you going to want to know about them………submerged boulders, pilons, rock bars. I hope you do well. Because of the Chipp being hard to navigate with anything more than a tube, it is definitely the most underfished fishery I know of. There are certain spots that normal/smaller boats can get to or foot travel is possible, but for the most part most of it see’s no fishing pressure. Hope this helps!

Brad

I have a question if I am in the mississippi river (pool 4). Can I run up the chippiwa during the summer? My boat is a flat bottom but what kind of depth is up their? Is their a defined channel up their, like with 5 ft or 4 ft that you can run? Thanks, David

How far up you want to go? I’m more familiar with Eau Claire area.

I’ve been about 1/4 to 1/2 mile up the Chipp from the Mississippi. But my bass boat wouldn’t go any further.
Most of the river is very shallow above there. I saw 3 guys standing in the middle one day and their ankles were just barely covered by water. The bends are especially shallow and hard to get through. You can probably get farther with a flat bottom than I did.

Well I have a flat bottom boat but it is a 1986 tuffy its flat but I still dont know how far I could go up LOL I dont want to run it up on a sand bar.

I made it out again on the Chippewa Falls Flowage between the dams last night for a few hours. I’d have to say what a feeding frenzy. The fish were very hungry. I started by using a 1/4 H2O jig tipped with a crawler. I ended up catching some of the typical 12-14″ smallies. I also caught 4 walleyes in another little hole. The walleyes were mostly in the slot…with one being 20″. They were in a place no bigger than a kitchen table. If I jigged outside of that I would only get smallies. I found out that they were relating to a 2′ drop off. I’m assuming it is a big boulder or rock ledge there.

I trolled the banks catching some more in the slot. I used a #7 firetiger shad rap. I started with a #5 but only ended up catching slimers and smallies.

I wish I would have had my camera with. It didn’t matter anyway because I was fishing by myself and taking pics is a little tough.

I do have to say the walleyes are getting bigger in that part of the river. I just wish they would get a little bigger on Wissota and up that part of the river too. Oh well….

Mike, maybe we will have to shoot for a fall trip, after the FLW championship.

Hey ya’ll …. I just started fishin this river… Its a big change of pace from my normal lakes…i really want to catch a big catfish…my first day last week i caught 8 huge sturgeon…never caught one before that is a rush…i did find walleyes too so wow! Can someone point me towards the cats?? Im fishin in chippewa

Wow you pulled this one out of the archive, I enjoyed the read

I have been catching cats below the Chippewa / Wissota dam two weeks ago. Chunk of crawler and jig. Depending on the year and water level the area below the Y is driftable for 200′ yards or so. I have caught some nice kittys in there but I am not targeting them. I usually catch everything right in there. Panfish, walleye, SM, Kitty’s and an occasional Musky.

Years ago I had a friend who targeted big kitty’s and he would fish them at night around the larger scour holes…hope this gets you started and welcome aboard!

Thanks man… Im goona give it a shot friday night….went and got a sturgeon tag…should be a great time!!

I’ll go ahead an resurrect this one again. I just moved over to this stretch over by the “Main street” bridge (not sure if it’s called something else). Would be nice if I happened into a decent place to fish close to home. I know it’s shallow just by driving by it but I got a surface drive duck boat and I’m pretty used to small water (within reason). I’m excited to get back to “western WI” spent a few years in Menomonie awhile back so interested in hearing if anybody knows what the 2020’s have brought to this stretch of river. Is it still decently close to what this thread would suggest?

If anyone needs another person to tag around with let me know, got all my own gear and secret spots stay secret. Keep ur lines tight.