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Posts: 63
| Fishing flowages and reservoirs, I often find that there is so much structure for the fish to be, they could be anywhere. In any given acre you could have 10 submerged stumps, 2 small cabbage beds and isolated submerged rocks. Then add in a little current and you could easily make a case for a number of different fishing strategies for that single acre. Change the wind or weather trend and now you have a few extra strategies to try.
The easy answer is to "fish it all", but the truth is, 90%-100% of it is unproductive water because all the surrounding 1000+ acres offer the same ambush zones.
How do you approach such highly variable structure-laden waters?
Thanks in advance - I learn so much from here so I hope my questions also help others.
-Darryl |
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| I live on a shallow chain that is a reservoir. Before buying the land, read a description of fishing the chain by an experienced guide who wrote something for the chamber of commerce. He said "the good news is you can't waste a cast fishing for musky because they could be anywhere, the bad news is the fish could be anywhere".
Over the years I have learned that to a degree that is true but you can increase your odds by fishing inside turns, points, rocks in an area that is otherwise flat and without structure, etc. On the other hand, one of my most productive spots is the middle of a shoreline where everything appears to be the same. Weeds, shore made up bog type brush, with tamaracks behind that. Nothing special but for three years in a row I caught a musky there on opening weekend, within a 50 foot stretch. Have caught them at other times as well. Have no idea why.
My place is at the beginning of an inside turn and have seen a number of muskies caught right in front of my dock, including a couple during the Hodag Challenge tournament, another time two of my nephews were fishing the chain and when they saw me outside pulled closer to chat. While talking to the one in the bow, the one in the back of the boat caught a musky. The next year the same nephew was up helping me with a project and after supper he and his buddy started out and his buddy caught his first musky on a top water 50 out in front of my dock. Again, nothing special but the turn and an opening in the thick weed cover along our shore. |
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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | The lake I fish mainly is not a flowage, but there is a ton of structure. A lot of mid lake weed beds, rock bars, etc. Very little is just your classic weedy shoreline gradually dropping into the basin.
I will say there are certain areas where the fish seem to be that don't stand out to me for any particular reason. The only way to find them is to fish it.
Not the type of lake I would recommend to someone to try to learn and be productive over one weekend. But, if someone was going to make it there lake of choice (and willing to put the time in), it can be rewarding.
Edited by 14ledo81 5/17/2021 7:59 AM
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Location: Vilas | there are no short cuts in muskie fishing. Keep casting and learning and keep the Tylenol close by |
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Posts: 2290
Location: Chisholm, MN | sukrchukr - 5/17/2021 10:14 AM
there are no short cuts in muskie fishing. Keep casting and learning and keep the Tylenol close by
Precisely. Cast until you catch one, then replicate as best you can. |
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Posts: 255
| Flowages are tough: the expanse, and the dark water. At this point I have proven there are about 3 muskies in the one I'm on, or I am exactly in the wrong spot most all the time. Fish as smart as you can with good spots at good times, and then go explore. June seems to be a bit more active as fish are in new weeds, but by summer they are spread out and hard to find. Last year I saw more floating logs and stumps than in the past, so watch out. |
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| One thing I might add is that sometimes electronics will help. For instance, before I got side imaging, I had caught several musky in a small spot across the lake from my house. Didn't seem any different than the rest of that shoreline but when I got side imaging, saw that in about 5 feet of water just off the weedline there are about a dozen boulders maybe 2 feet in diameter, right where I have caught fish. Don't know for sure, but I think that is why the fish are there sometimes. |
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Posts: 455
| Apex predators take the very best spots. It might all look good, but its not. Look for areas with lots of complexity and deep water near by. |
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Posts: 408
Location: MN | IMO, it's best to start with a macro view - before even looking for specific structure, look for high traffic areas.
Thought exercise: imagine dropping 2 dots on the lake in totally arbitrary locations, then connect them with the most obvious travel route. Now imagine if you did that for every pair of locations on the lake and overlaid all of the travel routes. Certain areas will have a ton of paths going through them. Points, neckdowns, junctions where multiple bays meet, etc.
While fish aren't going to be arbitrarily distributed and traveling down all paths, I believe generally those areas tend to be visited by all types of fish more often, just by virtue of the topography combined with movement.
The more info you have the more you can refine your idea of what paths might matter in the overlay. For example, if it is just after the spawn you probably want to weight paths leaving the spawning area much higher. If fish are likely to be on breaklines in the fall, well there will be a lot more paths taken on breaklines.
I have had pretty good luck running into fish using this to narrow down the search area. Once you have a general area, look for structure that might hold fish within the search area. Then on that structure, look for the specific features that are likely to be the sweet spot. If you truly have an overabundance of structure, why not narrow it down to spots that make sense at all levels of magnification? |
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Posts: 1983
| ^ Do you deer hunt?  I agree with your post |
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Posts: 208
| I have a love/hate relationship with a large NO WI flowage..... I have spent a lot of time there over 30 years.... mostly for fun but do get serious quite often. In 100’s of hours of musky fishing I’ve caught one, 45”er on a blind fig-8. Others with me on trips like to multi species fish so we do mostly that on this annual trip. While MS fishing we always (yes always) have follows from 30lb fish in 7” of water in the middle of nowhere......
I’ve tried to duplicate the locations with musky gear to no avail. It seems like they are everywhere unless I’m trying to catch them.
If u remove this 1 flowage from my “history” I’m a prettt decent musky fisherman ?????? |
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| Trollindad - 5/17/2021 8:40 PM
I have a love/hate relationship with a large NO WI flowage..... I have spent a lot of time there over 30 years.... mostly for fun but do get serious quite often. In 100’s of hours of musky fishing I’ve caught one, 45”er on a blind fig-8. Others with me on trips like to multi species fish so we do mostly that on this annual trip. While MS fishing we always (yes always) have follows from 30lb fish in 7” of water in the middle of nowhere......
I’ve tried to duplicate the locations with musky gear to no avail. It seems like they are everywhere unless I’m trying to catch them.
If u remove this 1 flowage from my “history” I’m a prettt decent musky fisherman ??????
LOL, some of the biggest musky I have seen on the chain where I live have been when fishing for crappie in the shallows prior to musky season. A few years ago, couple guys from southern WI came in after an early morning crappie fishing trip while I was volunteering at the landing for Clean Water/Clean Boats. They said they had done well but a number of times had to pull their crappies minnows/jigs away from following muskies. "Those things are a pain!" one of the guys said. He said he didn't fish musky but if he ever did he was coming back. I told him, when the season starts in two weeks they won't be anywhere to be found. |
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Posts: 20188
Location: oswego, il | Look for structures that are bigger and have more diversity as well as ones very close to the deepest water and the channel. Turns in the channel a bigger plus. |
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Posts: 32829
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I really like fishing flowages. Back a very long time ago I was on the Goon for an extended trip, went to town, and bought a LOT of small party balloons. I blew them up, tied 3' of line to them and a rock on the other end, loaded them into garbage bags and dropped them into the river channel up on the East end on a calm evening that was supposed to be followed by a few days of relatively calm weather. I spent the next few days fishing down the South and then North shores picking up baloons and marking the location of each on a map. Only a couple of baloons made it to the river in Dryden. I learned a lot about current directions, unmarked sand bars and a couple reefs, and current breaks. Keep in mind this was before GPS, and my sonars were flashers. I've used the knowledge gained from that experiment to read the water in flowages ever since.
This was before there were a ton of houses along most of the shoreline, but a few locals were pretty sure I was a little mentally imbalanced. One fellow from that day forward immediately exited his house if he saw me and headed down the dock to ask if I had seen any big muskies. Many times he insisted on sharing a couple beers. He passed away a number of years ago.
In darker water flowages the biggest mistakes I used to make were fishing too deep and not paying attention to current and the structure that changes it. |
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Posts: 319
| I’ve had a cabin on a flowage since 2003 and fish it quite extensively. ToddM mentioned researching in an earlier post and I’ve always been a believer of doing your homework. I read an awesome article by the legendary Bull Tutt where he describes a couple of his most productive spots of the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. Coincidentally, both spots were in very close proximity to the river channel.
Fish, especially big fish use the old river channels as a travel corridor. There is always food there for them and the deep water gives them security. Knowing this and applying it to my water it really helped my success rate. Look for places where the river channel is close to shore or a bar. In flowages there is usually no shortage of wood but if there is another structural element like heavy weeds or rock mixed in, this is what to look for. Also look for food shelves that taper off to deep water that have a lot of weeds.
Steve W mentioned the importance of current, this is really key too. Fish like current and will hold in it to a point but if it’s really heavy they will duck out of it. My biggest flowage fish was caught during a period of heavy rains and heavy current where the fish ducked out of the current into very heavy weeds. A couple years later under the same conditions I caught another big fish in the exact same spot, the exact same cast.
One thing about a flowage is that many of the variables are changing every year. Weed patches come and go, wood will move around a little but the old river channel and current will always be there. Look for those spots close to it with cover and cast your butt off and you will be rewarded.
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Posts: 408
Location: MN | IAJustin - 5/17/2021 1:23 PM
^ Do you deer hunt? I agree with your post
No, but the parallel makes sense - I had never thought about it that way. |
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Posts: 1247
| I've grown up fishing dark tea colored water in northern Wisconsin at my grandparents back in the 70's. If you are on a chain of lakes and the dam is open find current. You can't fish too shallow and they like surface lures. Black lures or sucker colored or brown along with florescents and white. These fish can be thick for there length. Give me a boat with oars and i'm a happy guy!
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Posts: 48
| nar160 - 5/17/2021 2:16 PM
IMO, it's best to start with a macro view...
This resonates with me. In some places, its all about the macro view. Most of my fishing is done on Georgian Bay, and its all about seeing the forest for the trees. Very different from some other waters where a very good looking spot is always a good spot. |
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Posts: 3820
| I'll just reinforce tips above and add wind. If I hit a new flowage I would first try to locate isolated small drops/holes in narrows, deep water, almost always in the original river basin. It's true that big fish don't waste energy holding in current but they will totally hold in a shallow hole below that very current to ambush fish that pass above. That's the spot on a spot on a spot and it's gold but first you gotta find it.
Next, wind - Wind triggers fish to move to structure that blows baitfish over and/or thru the rocks/stumps/sandbars. Or, the fish may be around there all the time but the high wind is what triggers them to get hot. Dunno. But a couple muskies and some of the biggest bass I ever caught were by casting a Buchertail 700 and pulling it thru whitecaps blowing over high spots just off the shore. Anyway, watch the wind and high wind is your friend.
Hope that helps. |
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Posts: 28
| I think the first thing is to identify the feeding windows. In a body of water like that, maybe try trolling and covering a lot of water to help find the fish. |
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Posts: 28
| I think the first thing is to identify the feeding windows. In a body of water like that, maybe try trolling and covering a lot of water to help find the fish. |
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Posts: 75
| This is a very helpful discussion to read. I have never had a clear picture in my mind as to what is meant by an "inside turn" or a "neckdown".
An inside turn is maybe the area just inside a small bay next to a point? Is a neckdown a line of rocks and gravel leading out from a point? |
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Posts: 426
Location: Perryville, MO | Hopefully someone will come along with pictures or a link. For an inside bend, think of a river making a significant change in direction. The outside bend is the long way around and usually results in a deep scour hole along the bank. The inside bend is the opposite side. With a neckdown the channel is narrowing. A classic example is the area between an island close to shore. The channel "chokes down" to pass through the area.
Structure fishing is mostly developed in writings by bass guys. So google a couple of bass fishing articles on structure fishing. Or better yet (if you really want to get bent), read Buck Perry on Spoonplugging. |
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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | bwalsh - 6/7/2021 12:52 PM
This is a very helpful discussion to read. I have never had a clear picture in my mind as to what is meant by an "inside turn" or a "neckdown".
An inside turn is maybe the area just inside a small bay next to a point? Is a neckdown a line of rocks and gravel leading out from a point?
Inside turn could also simply mean an inside turn on a weedy bar. Doesn't necessarily have to be an inside turn along the shore line. |
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Posts: 486
Location: Northern Illinois | I think of turns as corners, inside and outside. |
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