Chequamegon Bay is ON!!

[Jim Hudson]

Just sending a shout out to all you SmallMouth nuts.. Its time.. The fall feeding windows are opening here on the big water and things will continue to get better and better as the water cools. Pods of fish will get bigger and the numbers of fish caught will grow. Even though we are still averaging 20 to 40 fish a day, with an 18 inch average.

One other thing that is nice, hardly anyone else fishing or harassing these plump critters.. Come on up and give it a shot this fall. Oh, and the shallow water bite is going well too..

[TonkaBass]

I am leaving to meet Olski in five minutes! I can't wait, plus there is a $10,000 tagged fish swimming around out there somewhere this weekend! Makes it a little more interesting, nice fish!!!

[B-man715]

Great to hear!!!!!! Never been up during open water, but giving it a shot this year.

We are planning on heading up next weekend if the wind cooperates.

What is working and what depths should we target?

My buddy talked to a guy last year that was using humungo minnows on a drop shot and pounded the smallies.

[Jim Hudson]

Tonka,

Good luck finding that fish.. Dont forget about the other tagged fish too... The contest should be great..

For depths, right now fish are scattered from shallow to deep water. Shallow water is under 10 feet along shoreline and rock areas. Deeper eater is 15 FOW or deeper, on offshore areas like the breakwall or deep drop offs.

Big minnows do work, but dont forget to throw artificals too.. Tubes, football jigs, jig worms, drop shots, swim jigs, and wacky rigs have all worked for me as of late. Oh, and just a darter head jig with a 4" Gulp! has been good too.

[palisade1kid]

I'll be leaving come 4:30 a.m. for Ashland.

My main tactic are suckers on lindy's ,but cranks over the rocks works well too.

Nice pic's....won't sleep well tonight!

[B-man715]

Oooooooohhhh I'm excited!!

We are taking off dark and early Saturday morning. I hope to have some pics like you guy's to share! Thanks for the info.

[B-man715]

Well we got back last night after a great day out on Chequamegon Bay! The weather was perfect. The day started out cloudy with about a 10 mile an hour wind, which creates some decent size swells on that body of water. I'm glad I brought the rain gear because every 10th wave while motoring mangaged to mist the entire boat

In the afternoon the wind died down and the sun came out for a beautiful end to the day.

It was our first time out there fishing for smallies. Our numbers of fish could have been better, but the size was INCREDIBLE!!!

It truly is a TROPHY smallmouth water. Our average fish was 19". My alltime personal best before the trip was 18", now I'm proud to say it is 20.5"

We are going back up in two weeks if the wind cooperates again.

Here are a couple shots of some of the fish

[palisade1kid]

Hey guys...just got back...what a blast!

Mallard and I had plans to hit the big lake early.

I had all my gear packed in the boat and with Mallard showing up at 4:30 a.m. we had a great day in front of us.

There was only 1 hickup. My dog decides to go for a 2 hour run while I was hitching up the boat. Yes I was peeved ,but he finally came back and we got on the road.

Tons of fog and some slow traffic had me chomping at the bit to get out on that rock pile!

3 hours later we get our hotel room and we made the run to the bait shop for a few dozen sucker minnows.

After a few days of fishing there I've learned to gear up.

We had to stop mid day to rearm with sinkers,hooks and a few dozen more minnows.

Those rocks ate a ton of gear ,but what a gas and yes it was all worth it.

Our first drift we started in on those footballs.

Here's our only double of the weekend.

Friday was awesome as far as wind.It was calm and almost too hot.

We tagged a ton of fish and had a gas rearing on those smallies.

We caught several in that 19-20 inch range.They all ran around 5 pounds.

There were some smaller ones too ,but they all pulled hard and fought well.

After working the rocks in 10-15 fow we moved closer to the access .There's a rock pier with a lighthouse on it and 1 end has paid off before so we hit it and yes...it paid off again.

We drifted with the use of the electric motor to stay on coarse.

20 fow was the target depth.

The gulls seamed to like this wall and many had perched there like they were waiting for us to toss some dinner to them.

Some of these smallies really had some nice coloring to them too.

Here's one from the wall.

On the north side there is some shallow water that jets out from the wall and there is a bunch of coontail growing there.

Here was another boater that had a pike when we rounded the corner.

We kinda got into to it too so I speeed up to get our bottom bouncers off of the bottom with the idea to head for deeper water where the weeds stopped growing and whammo!

I stick a snot rocket too.

With the sun going down we headed for the access...it was time to eat and hit the sheets.

6 a.m. came early and after re gassing up boat our boat and boding as well as a stop to the baitshopp we were back on the water.

Sat. was a different start.

The wind was up and we rock and rolled a few miles out to the pile.

My thought was to anchor up with a lot of rope out to pendulim the boat and toss slip bobbers.

Here's Mallard with the 1st one of the morning.

It has been a day were you get one then I'll get one on Fri. and it seemed to start again the same way.

There were guys catching fish all over the pile.

These guys were pretty decent to talk with.

1 was from Milwakee and the other I forget but they make the pilgrimage every year the last weekend of Sept.

We caught several with the bobbers ,but decided to starting pulling drifts across the flat.

By the end of the day you should have seen the spagetti lines on the GPS.

Would you like to see more bass?

Here's that blind eyed bass.

We had a few oddities happen.You know stuff that makes you go hmmmmm?

Mallard catches a smallie and about an hour later he catches the same one.

It had a blind left eye.

Remember those others guys in the red boat....they caught it too.

I caugh 1 that had a circle hook lodged in it's rear outlet and it had another piece of fishing line wrapped around it with a hook and sucker minnow attached.

I didn't like either hook style.1 was a kahley and a circle hook.Free hooks would have been cool!

Mallard catches a bass that had not 1 but 2 tages in it...blue and yellow.

1 was from the Bayfield fishery.

For lunch on fri we did chicken legs on the gas grill and on Sat. we were doing some spicy brauts.

There were a few guys that asked if we were cooking brauts?LOL....They said they could smell them down wind.Too funny,so I cooked them up a few....they said that they wanted to trade out their cold sandwhiches!

I did invite them to CKO along with a few other fishers that we met out drifting around.

Here's a view of the town of Ashland with the oar dock sticking out in the lake.

and the power plant...

We decide to make a move and head for a spot we got from local intel...which turned out to be bogus.

Can't believe everthing you hear. So as long as we were on the sound end of the bay we poked around and here's another tagged smallie...

We also got into some eyes....yes bonus fish!

as the sun went down we took a parting shot.

When we got back to trailer up we meet some more folks that were out by Madiline Island fishing salmon and lakers.

Here's Chris with a few from the day.

his buddy's name was Steve and Kim and from talking to them we found out they really get around and some of the big lakes. Hopefully them stop in to say hi.

With sunday getting nasty we headed home. No sense drowning out on the main bay from big rollers and lightning.

In retrospect the trip was a success. We caught a ton of fish and with the water cooling the bite will only get better with these fish podding up.

I really want to get back in about 3 weeks.

So if anyone wants to go it's a 3 hour drive from my place.

Thanks Mallard....as always we tagged and released a bevy of fish...good thing we had pound ribeyes for dinner!

[SledNeck]

WOW, how do you have time to fish in between pictures????

Man, looks like lots of hawgs swim there

[palisade1kid]

We fished from sun up to sun down.Ate in the boat and kept at it all day.

From my expierence Jim Hudson is correct on the average smallie being 18" although we did see a bunch around 19-20 inches.

I believe that once we get into late Oct. that we will see bigger fish.

There were a few smaller fish we did not shoot.

[B-man715]

Hey Keith,

I think we saw you guys out on the rock pile? Me and my buddy where in a 16' v-hull grey Tracker with a 50 merc. I saw a guy taking some video of an awesome smallie battle, must have been you

We are planning on heading back up in a couple weeks- I can't wait!!!!!

I hope the next time you guys are up that you just as good and hopefully better!!!

I love this site

[Jim Hudson]

Those rock pile fish are a hoot!!

But, I hope you fellas make it up again, SOON.. Things are rocking like no tomorrow. 100+ fish in two days of fishing with clients this week. Unreal, these fish are mowing down the chow.. No need for minners either..

[Juan Grande]

PIGS!

[B-man715]

Well we had a great day out on the bay yesterday!!!

The weather decent and the wind wasn't too bad. We hit the water at 7 a.m, greeted with a 10 mph wind and about 35 degrees. We had the rock pile all to ourselves, apparently it was a little to nasty for everybody else That was fine with us, we caught a bunch of fish before the next boat arrived around noon. We bounced around a little and finished the day back out on the rocks with 6 other boats who made it out. The day ended beautifully with calm waters and a great sunset. Our average fish was about 18", with a 21" being the largest of the day!

My buddy brought his uncle up from Iowa. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while LMFAO

Jim, it's great to see that you have some happy clients We might hit you up for some guiding on lakers through the ice later this year. How much time in advance would you need to plan a day for?