We made our annual summer pilgrimidge back to Wisconsin to fish for smallies in the Chippewa and Flambeau Rivers. My wife and I were greeted with some water that was a little too high on the Chip to be effectively fished on our first day out, so we decided to fish a stretch of water on the Flambeau that I know quite well. This piece of water has a tremendous crayfish population, and sports some freaky looking football shaped smallies. I say freaky, because on occasion, we will catch some smallies that look like a giant brown bluegill. No monster “browngills” were caught today, but some real quality “toads” did manage to clear the gunwale of my Stealthcraft Power Drifter Sled. The fishing is different every year. We didn’t fish long, before we learned that the smallies weren’t using the traditional honey holes that we have grown to depend on year in year out. For some reason, they were scattered, and we had to work for them, but by the end of the trip we managed to catch twenty-nine smallies. Fifteen of those twenty-nine, were between fourteen and seventeen inches long, with our heaviest fish of the day coming in at three pounds and three ounces. This is only day one of our two week fishing adventure, so I would bet much bigger fish will show themselves, as we get closer to the Full Sturgeon Moon on August 15.
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report August 4, 2019
