Apple River Flowage

[JBMasterAngler]

I'm thinking about hitting this lake on the opener. Is the ice out yet? Anyone have any experience? We'll mostly just be targeting pike, but sounds like it's good for muskie, bass, and panfish as well.

[Nick Kuhn]

Interesting choice for targeting pike. Muskies won't be open, stick to smaller baits. Ice should be out soon, but I imagine there is some still holding on.

With regards to the fishery: it will just be tough to target pike out there. Weed growth is pretty prolific: there isn't much of a weedline to target as by surface area roughly 80% of the flowage will have pretty dense growth. This leaves you fishing them in the weeds, and there doesn't seem to be a ton of rhyme or reason to which parts of the weed flats hold fish and which don't. I've certainly caught pike by accident while fishing muskies there: but I haven't noticed any sort of pattern to the pike and I've logged many hours out there.

Bass are going to be your safest bet out there. I'd expect them to be up in the stumps and old pad stems early in the year. Both size and numbers for bass should be good. They can get tough to fish during the warm months as you really have to punch down through the weeds to get to them.

[JBMasterAngler]

Thanks for the heads up on the muskies, I forgot about the 2 different zones in WI

Interesting choice in pike, as in it's not as good of a pike lake as I'm thinking it is? Bass would be just fine, but I would imagine they aren't quite so active yet.

[Nick Kuhn]

Bass will be plenty active, I've never had many issues catching them pre-spawn. They just are generally all stacked up in the warmest water you can find. Last year on opener I went to the only lake I could find without ice (it was actually 25% ice covered still) and I picked up 10 bass over 14" all in about 2 feet of water.

Pike are just inconsistent on the flowage. They might be easier to find right away (near spawning grounds I would guess). Generally I don't head out there until after muskie opener, and they seem to be pretty widely dispersed by that time. Or maybe the hang out upstream of the 46 bridge (I've honestly never went past that bridge). You may get lucky and get there when only the curly leaf is up (it doesn't take long for the rest of the weeds to show up), which will help a lot in terms of shrinking the areas you have to target. By midsummer to a newcomer on that body of water it is more or less pray and spray with the lures.

[JBMasterAngler]

In all honesty, a lake that doesn't have a lot of people out there for the opener is most important. This will be my 1st WI opener, but for all the MN openers I always chose lakes that don't have walleyes in them, and they were pretty vacant. I can't imagine WI would be all that much different? Plus I'm hoping to scout a few areas on the apple river for trout fishing too. Thanks for all the advice

[Nick Kuhn]

The Flowage is always quiet except when there's a muskie tournament. Unless you are trying to fish a few of the narrows you probably won't be bothered by another boat all day. In the summer the sheer number of weeds means recreational boat traffic is practically non-existent.

[JBMasterAngler]

There was a few boats out there today, but not very busy at all. We launched at the park, and were the only ones there Water temps were still very cold though. My dad caught a 36" inch muskie, which my kids thought was the coolest thing ever! I only caught a "mini ski" and a hammer handle pike. Saw 1 boat where a guy and his little girl were catching crappies one right after another, but nobody else we saw or talked to could find any. Very nice lake though, I'd love to give it another try when the temps are warmer.

[Nick Kuhn]

I'm guessing for pike you had to get way up into the spawning grounds. On another lake we went way up a creek channel and found some good pike spawning areas. 53 degree water was there, caught several pike in all of 18 inches of water. My brother got the best one at a spawn beaten 35 inches. They were definitely warming themselves up, not returning to the lake to feed.

[JBMasterAngler]

Yeah, we only went as far as the 1st bridge crossing. The Beaver Creek inlet looked very promising, but was directly in the wind, so we passed on that spot. The 2 little ones we caught were in shallow muddy bays along the bulrushes.