Cindy took the day off while I fished another section of the Flambeau River that has been running hot and cold over the past few years. It wasn’t that long ago that we would regularly have 60-80 fish days on this beautiful rock infested section of the river. This part of the river contains a tremendous crayfish population. The smallies that gorge themselves on this overly abundant supply of crayfish can take on freakish proportions. I sometimes joke that some of the fish we catch look like large brown bluegills. For some unknown reason the fishing has been tough over the past three years. There still is a healthy population of crayfish in the river but we are no longer catching the numbers that we did in the past. Fisheries are dynamic by their very nature so this is not the first time I have encountered this over the many years I have been fishing for river smallies. I fished hard for seven hours and was only able to scratch out a dozen fish. The good news was that half of those fish were some impressive “footballs”. The biggest smallie of the day was only 18 ½” long but this broad-shouldered fish was so thick and stout that it weighed in at 4 lbs.11 oz. I caught another slab of a smallie that was only 17 ¾” long that weighed 3 lbs.11 oz. A picture of both of those impressive Flambeau River smallies is included in this report.
River Smallie Adventures Fishing Report August 19, 2022
