It has been awhile since I have been on the Chippewa river. Last time out was pretty much flood stage. Crusing down the river today I would estimate that the water has dropped about 8 ft since then.
I went out today with Bobby Boozer (who by the way has enlisted into the Army and signed up for airborne Ranger training). Our game plan was to do some multi-species fishing. The first part of the trip was spent floating the lower portion of the Red Cedar river. This yielded a few smallies that were caught using floating Raps. The fish were running a tad on the small side so we headed for the Chippewa.
The first area we wanted to try is a slack water area that drops to a deep portion of the river. Last time out I had decent success there. There was lots of activity on the surface, minnows shooting out of the water like missles! This usually means some good topwater action can be expected. We Decided to give my new St Croix fly rods a try. Using a variety of poppers and flys, we gave the area a good workout without any success. The fish were still chasing minnows so we opted to casting cranks and topwaters. The best action and best fish fish of the day came on firetiger jitterbugs. The second preference was a # 5 suspending Rap. A #5 floating Blue Rap also produced.
Later in the afternoon we decided to run livebait rigs to locate some sauger and eyes. We were targeting deeper slackwater areas. All we found was a few small cats. If you throwing topwater baits, give the river a try. It is loaded with various sized baitfish and the smallies are on the feed. See you on the water, Don.