Have fished the Wolf River out of Fremont during May for White Bass for about 5 years now. I was wondering if there are any other rivers or lakes, in Wisconsin, that offer comparable numbers of White Bass? It would be nice if those places had decent places to launch a boat and cabin rentals.
Wisconsin Fishing Discussion
White Bass
Ok Get the Net, I will believe you about the Wausau area, but will stake my claim about any further upstream on the Wisconsin River than Brokaw. I would gladly be proved wrong, but have never seen one despite having basically grown up hiding from the world on her banks.
Someone once mentioned the lake that had white bass as being the furthest south they were in our state. I can't recall which lake that is, but I know even in Canada there are a few lakes that have white bass, so it is possible to have them pretty far north. And think about the Wisconsin River before it was dammed up. Those white bass could've moved freely pretty far north. The furthest north I have personally caught them is on Green Bay.
Right now the Madison chain is loaded with white bass. All four lakes have white bass but Mendota has real large numbers of them, and some big ones too! In Southeast Wisconsin I know the Fox River has white bass. Just about anywhere on the Wisconsin River system will have white bass. A few lakes here and there have them I know. A smaller lake half hour north of Madison (Crystal Lake) has yellow and white bass. Rock River including downriver and up river from Lake Koshkonong has real good numbers of white bass. Also, when I was a kid I used to catch some HUGE white bass below the DePere dam this time of year. Not as many in the Bay as there are the Winnebago system, but they're big!
I used to catch tons of White Bass in the St. Croix River. Around here everyone called them “Silver Bass.” Jut a regional thing I suppose. If I remember right it was always toward the end of summer when they had their big runs and you could catch one on every cast. A yellow twister tail was killer.