Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers report

Only two things were clear last week.

1. Vacation was going to be based out of the camper at River of Lakes resort.

2. Thorough knowledge in that the solo, four day game plan was going to be……… I had no idea!

Arrived Sunday night, the temps were on the rise …finally. What a strange year it has been. Seriously, never sparking the central air up once for the month of July, are you kidding me? Great for comfort, strange for predictable patterns.

Seeking a little nostalgia, a bee line was made to the fish cleaning shack, see what the heck is happening.

Peering in to the two barrels after hearing the familiar brick-weighted screen door slam showed little encouragement. A few small gills, some smaller channels and a bass or two were knifed with plenty of the plastic barrel bottoms exposed. Looked like a challenging week was ahead!

This report will cover the lower Wisconsin river walleye bite and then jump back to the Mississippi pike, bass and panfish status.

Lower Wisconsin river

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A few months back my good friend Del mentioned how much he liked the looks and potential of the quoted "hardest working river in the nation", the Wisconsin river. Plans were drawn.

Wed. am.

Anyone who knows the Wisconsin can relate to this. The river has been low, shallow sand bars and exposed wood were making for navigation nightmares. Under this premise I was having second thoughts in the logic on why I ditched my flat bottom earlier this season while replacing it with the Alumacraft 16ft. lunker. This river loves to abuse V bottoms not to mention the inflicted abuse on props and lower units.

Arriving however, I noticed the water was running higher than just a few days before. A little on the dirty side but that was okay.

Running a familiar stretch of deep wood with cranks produced zip, the current was too harsh. Time to change it up! Priority one, find cleaner water. Two, find the seams with less current.

Finding a small chute up river that usually has just a trickle flow in low water was now running well. Not only that, the vast expanse of a sand flat feeding this cut filtered out some grime. Looked right! Game plan…anchor up and cast. Pull anchor, slip down, repeat.

Del started out with a shallow x rap, myself a jointed shad rap. Dels second cast gets crushed! Okay, been fooled before by flatheads on this river but deep down I had a hunch this one was a big marble. Anchored and in good current the 28" eye put on a fight to remember. Nice start. A few more saugers and eyes fell to Dels X rap in that chute before things tamed down with yours truly not getting a bump. Grumphhh!

Knowing we had all day to explore made making the next move a little easier.

Next stop, a small creek outlet with a small seam behind a small point. Remember, sometimes big things can come in small packages. After changing up to a 1\4oz.black Draggin jig

http://www.bfishntackle.com/draggin_jigs.html with a purple lizard, a cast was made to the point. Dropping off down to 10ft. is when that familiar strong twitch was felt. One of those electric twitches that leaves little doubt that your rod WILL bend after sweeping the stick…man does a guy live for that or what?

This fish was strong and in big time current! The Avid mlxf along with the Pfleueger supreme held up flawlessly and after a ten minute show down the second big fish of the day, 29", was netted, taped and released. Two great fish with two memorable battles.

Things went a little south for the rest of the day, alot of waters explored but with the sun gaining intensity the bite tapered.

A fantastic day shared with an old friend, one not ever to be forgotten.

Pike

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Back to old man river. The big pike for my boat were elusive. Good numbers however with the majority in that 25" class. Guessing that around thirty pike came to the boat all being caught on oversized spinnerbaits and remanufactured chatter baits.

Never hit the bass too hard this week but always liked taking my chances knowing that a monster bass could take the huge pike offering at any time. Come on fall!!

Panfish

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Think deep wood with a little flow. Took a few days of chasing but finally found some fish.

My father came down on Thursday wanting a few for his and my moms supper. Boy, talk about pressure to try and feed the family. Noticing a root system exposed in the middle of an 8 ft. running chute a few days prior while hucking big baits drew me back with the long rod and crawlers, ice jig box and plenty of ice cold 12 oz.ers.

Dad started popping gills right away with a mini mite while I started to get bit by thick sided crappies with a moon-glo. A nice bag of 15 panfish were iced. Talk about another special outing! Yep, owe it all to Dad, if it wasn’t for him then this report would no doubt never exist. What a pleasure catering to Dad. Taking him out in MY boat while cleaning and bagging up his fillets. My reward? Being enlightened by the old stories of family, his wonderful comedic timing while telling a joke and just seeing the look of pride and deep satisfaction on his 79 year old face while enjoying the passion of fishing, the same passion that he so wonderfully taught us at the University of River of Lakes.

Have a great season everyone!