Last week I set out to do some smallie fishing in the Hayward area. The fish were right where I left them the weekend prior and the water temps were actually cooler than they were before. The fish were pre-spawn and were set up in staging areas. The bite was a bit finicky but a 4" grub rigged on a 3/32 ounce jig head seemed to be the ticket. This light weight jig makes for a slow drop in 10′ of water but it seemed to be what the fish were looking for.
Last Friday headed up to Chequamegon Bay on the south shore of Lake Superior to fish the sand cut slough for smallies. The bite wasn’t bad. Again the fish were pre-spawn and were seemed to be staging in areas around where they’d make their beds. 5 to 6′ of water was the area that held the biggest fish. Water temps were right around 50 degrees.
Although we caught a few nice fish on spinnerbaits, the 4" grub reigned supreme as the most effective bait. We caught around 35 fish in about 5 hours and more than half of them were over 19" with many right at the 20" mark. They seemed to like the light weight jig and grub worked very slow and low on the sand bottom. Some of the best fish of the trip though were slamming the grub close to the boat as I was rushing it in. The bait had to start out on bottom and be dragged in slow for most of the retrieve though, you couldn’t cheat by working it fast the entire retrieve.
On Memorial day I guided back in the Hayward area again for smallies and found that the water had warmed slightly to about 52 or 53 degrees in the deep, cool lakes I was fishing. The fish were in the same staging pattern and had not started forming beds yet. It was pretty much the same pattern except we were able to get some nice fish to start eating a jig n’ pig in the 10′ range. We rounded out a 5 hour trip with about 40 smallies with the average size right around 17". I will bet that the smallies are on beds in the Hayward lakes right now as I write this… I have a couple musky trips in the few days but I am contemplating heading back up to catch some more smallies early this next week on a couple of my open days. If anybody is interested, let me know…
Great job Ryan !!
The river down here is not pretty at all and i have not been on it for some time…
thanks for the help in curving the itch !!
You have to love the fight of those big smallies! Thanks for the report! I might have to take a trip north next weekend.
Great looking SMB, Ryan
Jack
Nice job Ryan!
I am heading up to Cheq Bay Tuesday…weather is going to be cold/rainy… Was Kakagon still muddied up bad?
Thanks guys! Yes Tom, Kakagon and and about 50% of the main bay were all muddyed up. All that red clay from the creeks had washed in. It looks kind of cool when you drive around the south end of the bay… Sand cut had pretty good clarity, the wind was out of the NE for us. Good luck up there!
Fingers crossed…looking SE, E, NE winds for us with 38-40 mornings and 55-58 afternoons…
Managed to get off my duff for a short bit on Sat. noon, in amongst the storms of Thurs. and Fri. nights. I was waiting for another smallie aficionado, who determined that his arrival in the Northwoods was too late to get unpacked and ready before fishing and then joining me for the Blackhawks hockey match.
So I dumped into Tomahawk Lake for a quick couple hour fix before work took over again for the next five days… First spot, a couple dozen fish up to 15″ over an hour and I was off to check out a couple of spots quickly for a little bigger fish before I had to get ready for work. Never really got back on them, although I managed to find a few hanging here and there on the other three spots I tried.
Mark
Nice fish Ryan, looks like you’ve been keeping the WI brown bass sweating. It’s been awhile since I’ve fished the bay this early in the year, great to see they’re on the chew!
Joel