Turtle Flambeau Flowage, Iron County

Just got back from our annual trip to the flowage. Stayed at cedar cove cabins. Crappies where mainly caught on the cribs. With some caught drifting in the 13-15 fow. Walleye where caught in 10-12 fow. Mostly on night crawlers. But some on large fatheads. Also caught a bonus Muskie. Always a great trip with a great group of family and friends 

With equal amounts of daylight and darkness the leaves are slowly starting to change the water started cooling but with 80* weather this week the fish patterns are still of a late summer bite.

Still having the best luck on walleyes in water 10' and under relating to mainly wood structure. It is the mixed bag season we are catching nice perch, occasional blue gills and pike while walleye fishing. We've tried deeper water in the 14-16' range fishing various wood structure and have found big crappies doing best on the crappies with slip bobbers and extra large fatheads, have also caught walleyes and perch in the deeper water while targeting crappies casting 1/8 weedless Jigs . There seems to be quite a few 9" crappies under the "keeping size" most of the fish kept are big fish in the 12-14" range.

I have been using mainly minnows now for the last week and a half. A friend has caught big gills in the deeper water on a gulp product, I'm sure crawlers would catch them too. They aren't as prevalent as a couple years ago but there are still quite a few nice gills out there especially on some of the deeper cribs.

Musky can be found in the many varied depths and bottom structures the flowage has to offer. I have heard of fish being this past week in 12-15' on wood structure. We fished all day Wednesday targeting mainly shallower water with weeds. We caught 7 pike had some boils of unknown species and had three muskies hit baits one we had briefly coming to the boat but came unhooked, no fish in the net.

It is hard for most people to stay focused musky fishing all day, it is physically tiring and can drain the mind. I suggest if you start losing your focus, take a break and rejuvenate, there is nothing worse then fishing hard all day and finally getting a big fish hit late in the day and not be prepared to catch the fish. 

Also be prepared to catch a fish, have all the proper implements to quickly get the hooks out, including a heavy wire cutter , if needed. Get a quick picture and get the fish back in the water.

September is a great month to catch a musky, good luck.

Uncharacteristic of me, I had all my gear packed for Alaska last night, no last minute panicked scramble. Heading out the door right now for the airport, I'll have  phone contact for the next couple days if anyone is interested in booking a trip, have half day 29th of sept. open(afternoon) then open time after the 16th of October.

Pops,

check down a few posts...sportsman’s is closed for now due to repairs.  Just thought if you fish north you should know.  I’m new to this water, so can’t help with specifics as to spots.  Want to get there when I’m up first weekend of Oct.  let me know how you do.

fs

First picture today: Karen and Andy.

Next couple pictures crew from last report(Wednesday), fun guys to fish with Jim Frank and Jake. Jim with 41" musky.

Have a last minute opening for the 3rd (labor day) when I lived "down below" we used to head home late day on the holiday weekends and have light traffic, would do half day or full day if anyone interested. Hoping to get a reprieve from a long list of work around the house if anyone wants to bail me out.

After the night long storms, morning started out slow, afternoon had some real nice fish shallow water, 5-10' biggest fish in 5-6' relating to big dia. stumps.

A day off, think longest I've gone without a report since I joined Lake Link I also see I missed returning a few lake link messenger questions, call or email is best way to reach me, don't mind answering questions. Next season going to try some kinda time management plan to get one report a week out.

Water is down , I would guess about 2 feet , rocks wood starting to poke out of the water. An attached tree in about 10' of water surprised me the other day, didn't hit it but close, Wow that doesn't belong there! Occasionally the ice uproots one, it bobs along vertically until it beds down in a new place.

The walleye fishing the second half of the month has certainly been better than the first half, have been getting some bigger fish in the 16-18" range. Still doing the best in the 6-10' depth range, humps and wood flats. Been using crawlers and leeches, catching fish casting 1/8oz. jacks jigs and on slip bobbers some days there seems to be a real preference for a jig moving across the bottom other days the bobbers have done better.

The water is starting to cool down, the temp on this report is my best guess, have a power cord issue on new unit with temp gauge, hoping to get to that today. I will be trying some minnows tomorrow.

We've found some bigger aggressive biting perch while fishing walleyes also blue gills in that same depth and structure.

Smallmouth have been on fire some days , slower days still catching them here and there. Still catching best on a deadstick with a leech, my leeches are almost gone, think they are pretty well gone at the bait shops. A lot of stout 14-16" fish out there.

I haven't fished crappies but I know they are starting to be caught in good size and numbers in deeper water.

I got a chance to do some musky fishing this week, was real happy to have the opportunity. Monday fished them all day with the poor weather conditions ( for people) we found a good bite going but luck wasn't on our side. Had a big girthy fish following customer Jim's bucktail, think it would have ate the bait when he hooked a shallow weed about 2' long, the fish turned off. The next fish, again on Jim's bait, Jim hooked the fish had it coming to the boat until the fish leaped, cleared the water by 2' and threw the bait. Next fish hit the Boucher slop master I was throwing, problem I have is I often have my head turned away trying to see the head of the trolling motor, especially with three customers, I made an awkward hook set and the pretty decent fish came unhinged. The fourth fish, a really nice one, swirled on a Fat B. but no bait in mouth. We had other boils of either musky or pike but four were sure musky, 2 were big fish, about as good a day as you can have without one in the net.

Next day Tuesday fished morning with solo musky fisherman, frothed a lot of good water, never saw a fish, talked to two other musky fisherman out that morning same story. Some days or parts of the day they are very inactive.

One of the best aspects of my job is the friendships made, yesterday had the same fisherman I had Monday, think our 7th year fishing together. Monday we kept a couple pike for shore dinner while musky fishing, yesterday they were hoping to catch a few fish to take home to their wives. We live bait fished until early afternoon, had a mixed bag of fish including a 17&18" walleye, but the fish were not real aggressive. I suggested we might be able to collect some pike while musky fishing, the pike were active and hit bucktails aggressively but no musky. The guys had also fished musky the day before and were getting wore, I suggested hanging in there for a couple more spots, I really wanted a fish in the net. Finally around 5pm an acrobatic 41" took Jim's bait ( I think he has a 4 leaf clover in his wallet) after a hard fight we netted the fish and had a good release after a very short time out of the water.

Been fishing a lot of structure, lot of different baits, bucktails in shallow water have seen the most action. Fished some rocks, but a lot of weeds.

I have a few days open, first half of September, will be in Alaska the 15th-26th booked thru the 16th of October, 2nd half of October I have a lot of open days. I am dedicating the 24th to musky fishing (prime moon phase) If I don't get a customer, I'm taking a day off to musky fish. I won't have any minnows in the boat unless I decide to catch a few walleyes for bait.