Petenwell/WI River

Had a chance to play at the Pete for a few days, and camped at the County Park. Started off in the lake portion on Friday AM, targeting eyes at the south end of the lake. Well, while the eyes were less than cooperative, the smallies picked up the slack. Dragged jigs tipped with live bait, and and one with plastic, and all fish came on plastic…the neverfailing catalpa orange paddletail. Even a 10.5 inch bluegill inhaled the bait (photo to follow later in the week). Pretty much worked the 7 to 8 foot flats near the break in the area of the last 2 channel marker bouys. Wind picked up late morning, and tried trolling boards with shad-rap and walley divers, while bottom bouncing a spin’n’glo with a ringworm, and the smallies and small eyes liked the ringworm best. No hits on the cranks. Final count was about a dozen boated smallies, biggest at 16, a few small eyes, and a behemoth blue gill. Moved to a quiet bay in late afternoon to get out of the wind, and had one hit…a nice fat 26 inch eye that inhaled the purple/white ringworm in 15 fow.

Switched to the river section below Nekoosa for Saturday and Sunday, due to hurricane winds. Pretty good walleye action both days, and boated about 60 or so with 6 legals in the bunch. Lost a good number of fish too. Saturday was definitely a plastics day, as most fish aggressively hit the paddletail. Sunday, jig/minnow did the trick. Launched at Chesters Creek, and hit a few areas downriver from 10 mile..never made it to the dam. With the high winds blowing down the channel, had to use the bow mount to drift down river, dragging the jigs, then dragged back up river with the wind at my back. Both drifts were productive, in 8 to 13 feet of water. Lost quite a few nice fish on Sunday, before a light went on, and decided to add a stinger..BINGO…should have thought of that earlier. Even had a 30 inch pike bite me off, only to be caught a few minutes later, with my jig still in its mouth.
So I’d say if you’re looking for some good action, both the lake and river are both producing some fish now, and from my time out there into fall over the years, this bite should only get better.

Pictures of the goliath Gill as promised….sucked in the paddletail.

….and one of the fat eye, a few hours later,this time with a ringie.

Had some time to goof off last week, and with the great forecast, decided to take one more road trip for the year. Hit the WI river at Nekoosa on Friday and Saturday, staying between chesters Creek and the old launch most of the time. Friday brought 4 legals to the boat amongst the 3 dozen or so eyes boated. On Saturday, we boated about 4 dozen fish, with 7 legals, a few crappie and a big fat carp that made me think I was in the process of boating my first 30 incher in quite a while, until it reared it’s ugly head. Also got one slot etye at 21 inches…..Ran to the dam, but shallow conditions and no bites chased us back to the action zone. Minnow/jig was the ticket, as plastic didnt get much attention. Fish were in the 10 to 15 foot holes.
Heard lots of gun shots thru the day on saturday, and saw numerous hunters in blaze orange in the woods along the banks. After a volley of several loud shots, we heard a bullet whiz by us….it took a second to register and was very eerie after we realized what it was….glad it missed us and the boat, cuz the bite was decent, and the weather couldn’t have been better.