Eagle River lake recommendations?

Going to be up there for a 4 day trip starting Thursday. Can you recommend lakes for bass, northerns, and perhaps walleye on one of or part of those days?

Thus far we’re going to fish the ER chain – can you drive a boat from Watersmeet all the way to Eagle Lake, etc.?

Long Lake, Anvil, N Twin are candidates.

Thanks,

LAXPatrick

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Fishing sucked. Finally got into some fish yesterday on Kentuck – LM and SM bass off the rocky point with the occasional walleye. Too bad you can only keep one walleye over 28″. Not that I’d want to keep one that big…

Tried the ER chain lakes as well as Lac Vieux Desert. That’s French for “Lake Devoid of Fish”. Caught a couple of small northerns – nothing else was biting.

LAXPatrick

The forums are usually full of helpful people so I would guess it’s safe to say quite a few people went with the “don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all” approach to your question.

1 over 28″ regs? Why? Are the populations that low that they need to protect all small – breeding age fish to maintain a healthy fishery? Or is this a “trophy only” fishery that people fish for a chance at multiple big fish knowing they can’t keep anything?

Sorry your trip resulted in some slow fishing and thanks in advance for any answers you or anyone else might have to offer on my questions.

The “1 over 28” regs are found in a couple of lakes that are hit hard by spring spearing. Much like Mille Lacs, the Wisconsin walleye lakes in the ceded terrritory (which includes the Eagle River area) are managed to provide a safe, total harvest by both spearers and sport fishers. The 1 over 28 reg effectively prevents harvest by sport fishers on lakes that are speared extensively.

There’s an excellent article in Wisconsin Outdoor News (June 4th issue, page 7) that deals with the Kentuck Lake issue specifically. The short version is that Kentuck (which at less than 1000 acres is not a huge body of water) has been being rehabilitated since 1999 with intensive walleye stocking, and no spearing took place since 1998 in an effort to grow the walleye population. The DNR’s understanding was that there would be a joint “reopening” of the lake to both spearers and sport fishers at the same time, but the spearers announced they would spear it ahead of its opening to sport fishers. The result: 987 walleyes speared from Kentuck and essentially no sport fish harvest this year.

I couldn’t find a link on the Wisconsin Outdoor News website for this article, but if someone wants to see a copy, drop me a line and I’ll get it to you by fax.

When will we ever learn? No stocking should EVER take place on a body of water that will be netted or speared resulting in extremely tight regulations. I mean, what’s the point? State funds are poured in… only special interest groups get to reap the benefits.

Everybody’s all excited about the eventual re-opening of the walleye fishery up on Red Lake in Mn in a couple of years. The netters have promised they won’t over-net and kill the lake again. I’m betting those that believe that line of bull will be in for quite a shock down the road.

Thanks for the reply.