Spent the last six days fishing the WI R from L WI to a little below Castle Rock dam. Was able to fish out of the jon boat and bass boat.
Lake WI- This is one of the coolest lakes I've ever fished and one of the most challenging. This is where the locals have such huge advantage over a touron like me. There is no great mapping on this lake for lowrance and being outside of the original river channel had some pucker factor. After two days of running it though I developed a bit of confidence running around over some sand bars and tree lines. I think the best fishing was under a couple bridges I couldn't get the bass boat under behind the grade and gallus slough (I couldn't get my front seat out of the damn seat post base). I did crank/c-rig some treelines with points and drops on the original channel with some success for largies surprisingly and sheeps, but nothing over a couple pounds. They're not dense treelines, but there is a bunch of stuff on the bottom on some of the channel swing and confluence areas. This lake fishes much like falcon. I did fish bluffs for smallies and they were there. It was fun running the river to the interstate, running the champ over 12" and feeling the skeg rub sand definitely gets your attention. Bluffs with current had smallies and largies mixed in and there were a few over three pounds. What really amazed me on this lake was the huge amount of great looking shallow water that is dead, that is what forced me to structure scan the river channel. I wish I had time to scan the bays as that is where the majority of schooling fish were, but they are large shallow bays, and it was tough to understand where the drops and channels went. I really wished I had humminbirds with auto chart. I am looking forward to getting back there in Oct when it should fish a lot easier.
Portage to "The Cables"- Super cool area with smallies everywhere. Late morning with shade find a bluff/deeper water near shore with current and you'll catch bass. If you can find five feet of water there's a decent fish in there just gotta make her bite. This area fished super easy and fifty fish was pretty easy, just a ton of 13-15" fish, but did get into a few 4# fish also. They are all rockets though. 19"-20" fish only weighing 4#, they are not Sturgeon Bay studs.
Lower Dells- Typical beat up tourist area. Super cool area to fish and there were a ton of fish, just not the quality found below the cables.
Upper Dells- This was a place I fished with the bass boat and jon boat. Just like above Portage, the skinny water was better. Pretty typical of river fisheries in mid summer.
Overall, I am really looking forward to fishing in mid-Oct when these bigger smallies are all grouped up this fall on L WI and lower Dells lake area. I really want to to spend more time on L WI too. I am betting that lake is way better than it's reputation. There is spawning area, plenty of nursery area, a ton of structure with cover, and ton of undiscovered water for me because of the crappy mapping available.
This was my second favorite area I have fished in WI behind the Red Cedar L area. I'm guessing there were over 35 smallies over 4# caught this past week.
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