Turtle Flambeau Flowage, Iron County

If you were trying to plan your trip to the TFF to coincide with the added challenge of catching walleyes after a mayfly hatch you will really be disappointed you weren't on the water today. I came in to the dock at Fisherman's at dark last night after a late day trip with a group of "young guys" college buddies, graduates from uwsp, the water surface was abuzz with mayflies. We had done well fishing north of Lake Bastine in 14-18' of water, caught around 20 walleyes, kept 10 and a few other species.

Today after throwing jigs at some easy to see walleyes in the bed of river channels and over hard sand with scattered stumps in the 12-15' range, and having no takers we moved to shallow weeds. We fished some cabbage mixed with pondweed, when you don't even get a perch bite or a pike you start thinking WOW this could really be a poor day. I had the good fortune of fishing with Dave (fished with many times) , a really easy going guy who was enjoying the, "beautiful sunny day with the white puffy cotton ball clouds" well Dave it will really be a beautiful day if we find some hungry fish.

We were near cribs ,tried  a couple of those next, even the panfish were very non committal , caught none of the few biters.

I set the hook into our first fish, a rock bass , I looked at the clock on my sonar unit, 10:30, wow.

As my brother in law says, "they're always biting somewhere" .

We tried waypoint 035, logs in the bed of a river channel in 17' , a nostalgic fishing spot for me. I found the spot shortly into using the new sonar technology, gps etc. Out scouting by myself I think 7 years ago in the fall, drove over the spot saw two big arches on the screen, quick threw in the buoy and anchored. Caught two exceptionally big smallmouth put them in the livewell. Picked up the buoy and drove over the spot, the arches on the sonar were gone, they were in my livewell. Drove to the landing had a friend take a picture of me holding the fish, was the picture on my first business card. Then released the fish .

Today we caught 3 walleyes and 2 big bass off the spot. we should have had 4 walleyes but according to Dave I was too lazy to get the net, (I was on the phone ordering flowers for my wife's birthday tomorrow). I looked at the bend in Dave's rod, contemplated dropping the phone and grabbing the net decided not to. No Dave you need to learn how to do the "dutch haul".

Hopefully that was the grand finale as far as mayfly hatches. 

Mayflies:

Last week there were two successive evenings when there were hatches ,lose track of the days don't remember which days they were, they were the smaller variety. Today when I  launched my boat at fishermans there were quite a few on the dock and the shells in the water of the largest species. When there is a good wind blowing all night it is sometimes hard to tell how big the hatch was because the waves blow the skeletons to the shorelines. I think it was a pretty good hatch. When I picked my customers up at Donner's Bay I did point out the mayflies, they are a good disclaimer to the cause of a possible slow day of fishing.

We didn't catch numbers of walleyes but we had some really nice fish today, along with smallmouth and perch. Had a late day trip tonight and we again found walleyes in a different part of the flowage along with bass and a couple big blue gills.

Most people have to plan their vacation, there is no way to plan around a mayfly hatch. If you want to sit the month of June out you will miss the mayflies and the best fishing month of the year.

Happy father's day, a day late, fished with grandfather and grandson in the steady rain in the morning, found a real good walleye bite. In the afternoon, father, son and soon to be 92 year old grandfather, Oral a world war two veteran . We found the walleyes slower but managed an all you could eat shore dinner of walleyes and perch.We almost made it between the rain squalls, had to fry the last of the fish in the rain.

HRG my wife isn't a lake link reader, I had her read your comment, she got a laugh!

Pictures:some fish from today, father's day dinner in the rain,father's day morning.

As long as we're posting pictures of red horse, here you go. Got this guy in a cabbage bed near Fisherman's Landing a few weeks ago. Thought for sure it was a walleye. But it is a good looking fish.