Middle Eau Claire Lake Smallmouth

I got invited to friends cabin north of hayward, on middle eau claire lake for walleye fishing this past weekend and he was right about the bite!
We got to lake friday around 3:00 for evening bite and got all of our tips set up with small walleye suckers and fished a gravel bar near a big weed bed.We had flags almost imediatly!
The action was good till around 7:30 and then slowed, so we headed back to his cabin with 3 nice eaters.We released 3 small walleyes, and a pesky perch that set off one of my tip up 3 times before i got him.
Sat. we set up in the area,with a few other locals out there and the action was already going on.My friend, Stacy hooked a huge smallmouth right away.We photographed it and released it back.It measured 21″, with guess around 5 1/2 lbs.
It was the largest smallmouth hes caught!
It was a great weekend for fishing, even though it was very cold sat. night. With temps. around -25
Batteries went dead on camera, forgot to reset the date

Nice fish! Looks like you had a blast

it’s good to see that the fishing is coming back, I only caught 1 crayfish in there last year and the weeds are growing again. I’ll be up there fishing in 2 weeks, looks like you were near the boat launch side of the lake.

We were fishing in front of of the Buck’n’Bass resort on sat. night, and friday we fished out in the middle more on the shallow humps??
I’m not too familiar with the lake, but i think it would be the north west bay north of the boat launch..
And we were using small walleye sucker minnows, too big and they would run and ripp minnow off.Small ones and they would pull out 3-5ft.of line and stopp and munch, usually all were were hooked on there own.

I’ve caught some nice ones in front of buck n bass in the summer but never fished over there in the winter. They used to fry them up for you while you sat at the bar and watched your tip ups. In the winter I usually fish the other side of the lake near the boat launch. Thanks for the tips, I’ll let you know how I do if I catch something i na couple weeks.