Bone Lake WI

[maddiejeff]

I have not fished the WI musky opener before and was thinking of heading to bone on Sunday morning and had a couple Questions about it. Is there a lot of parking at the ramp because i wont be able to get out until about 8am. Second, is it going to get a ton of pressure this weekend and is it a big enough lake to sunstain the pressure?? Thanks

[DHanson]

Expect Bone to be VERY BUSY this weekend. I fished Bone the last 2 Wisc. muskie openers and we did ok. The problem with the Wisc. muskie opener is that it is on Memorial weekend and so the lake is FULL with people. The recreation can be unreal out there at times, but maybe you will luck out with the cooler weather we have been having. The last 2 years I was there it was 90+ degrees and even had a tornado roll through! The parking situation is actually pretty decent. The access is at a park and I have never had any issues with the parking there, but I am usually one of the first ones to get to the landing too. Bone is a decent sized lake, but it fishes small in my opinion. Good luck!

[maddiejeff]

thanks for the info DH. You ever try fishing it at night?? I have never tried goin for musky at night but seems like quite a few are doing it wtih success. I would think that with the extra fishing pressure and recreational pressure they might be feeding at night when the lake calms down a little. but again i know nothing about going after them at night, just a guess.

[DHanson]

We tried fishing at night a little with no luck, but give it a try. I think if I was going this year I would try night fishing more. Let us know how you do.

[maddiejeff]

I will do that. I might try to talk my buddy into finding a less crowded lake, but that may be impossible this weekend.. I live in Osceola WI so the river is always a option, but we fished muskies a lot out there last year above the st. croix dam and caught very few fish.... only one over 40" in about 15 trips. any other lake suggestions in polk county??

[DHanson]

The only other lake I have fished for muskies in WI is Grindstone. So, I don't know what other lakes are good or not. I heard Deer is pretty good, but that is going to be just as busy as Bone this weekend. Yellow is always an option too.

[Walleye Guy]

Try Blake Lake. Much smaller lake, has a good population of muskies including some bigs ones and it won't have near the recreational boat on it that Bone will. The accidental fish in Blake are nice too.

[maddiejeff]

The WI dnr websites claims that blake lake in polk county doesn't have muskies in it.... it could be old info though... do they stock it??

nevermind i found where it says it holds muskies... they have it classified as a class C musky lake, but the only class A's in the area are deer and bone.

[Walleye Guy]

I am not sure of the classification. However by the amount of musky catches and near catches my buddy has when he bass fishes it, it must have a decent population. He has a cabin on the lake. I have not personally caught any out of there but have had numerous follows and I have seen quite a few lounging.

You would not catch me trying to fish Bone Lake on Memorial, 4th of July or Labor Day weekends. The place is a zoo. Especially if the weather is nice. It can the Lake Minnetonka of NW Wisconsin on big weekends.

[Nick Kuhn]

It's a shame it gets to be such a zoo because it is a tremendous muskie lake. If you want to fish it start out at night before sunrise and fish until about the noon hour. Bone is really simple to fish, find the usual suspect structure on the windy side of the lake.

Class C lakes are generally regarded as lakes where it's possible to catch them, but targeting them is not recommended. Blake's muskies are just those that thought it would be a good idea to leave Bone, those fish are all migrants, so the population is probably pretty low. And some from Blake decide to swim there way up into Big Round, which has an even lower population but last creel a half dozen were caught there for a year. So they do get around. Wapogasset was the only lake I know of with a fishable migrant population though.

Deer is another option but it'll be the same story. Generally it's a tougher lake to fish (less structure, clearer water, fewer fish) than Bone but sees the same recreational traffic.

The other option is where I might go, the Apple River Flowage. It's marked as a class B but probably has a population comparable to Deer. Only problem is parking is limited. Also the boat ramp they tell you to use on the maps doesn't exist, so look for the red sign off 46 that says boat landing )it's north of Amery, pretty small and tough to see from any distance). Don't worry though as you will only be competing with other fisherman, nobody in their right mind would want to jet ski or water ski on that water.