Fishing Log: Lake Holcombe -- Holcombe, WI

A few days camping at Pine Point County Park in Chippewa County, Wisconsin is good for the soul in so many ways.

The fishing? Not so much.

Lake Holcombe is a fickle beast, in kind terms. I love the lake. It is absolutely gorgeous, very scenic, and it feels great to really open up all four cylinders on Pop's eighteen footer and zip up and down the ~4000 acre flowage. However, the fishing can often times be incredibly frustrating.

This recipe has multiple factors to it. One, there is significant leisure and sport traffic for most of the summer. This makes fish extra wary during the day. Moreover, the lake sees a high amount of fishing pressure year round, making fish even more skittish than normal. All of this combines to make Lake Holcombe an incredible challenge when it comes to catching consistent fish. But what am I here for, if not a challenge?

The predominate lake species are Walleye, Musky, and Pike. There are bass present in some of the backwaters, but make no mistake, this is not a lake to head for if you're looking to rip some lips. The way the spring has been going for me, I figured I was bound to hook into some pike. So that was going to be my primary focus.

The first day, Thursday, May 21, we arrived at the campground and the family and I set up the camper. Beautiful campground, if anybody is wondering. That evening we headed out for a sunken island in the main straightaway of the lake. We worked the sunken island for about an hour and a half, working crawler harnesses and small crankbaits over it as we trolled back and forth. Lake Holcombe is one of the select inland waters you can troll on in Wisconsin. The fishing wasn't particularly productive, but we did manage to hook into three eater-sized walleye. All three smashed the harnesses from below, making hookups almost trivial.

Fish Count: 3 walleye

The next day we worked back bays and eddies for whatever was looking to smash some stick baits. I hooked into a handful of rock bass, each measuring around 10". The most remarkable catch of the morning was a ~12" rock bass hitting my 2 3/4" Daredevle red and white spoon. A lunch and relaxation period back at the camp was followed by an evening on Cranberry Lake, an offshoot of Lake Holcombe that can be accessed underneath a bridge. This got us away from the main hustle and bustle of the lake.

We fished Cranberry for 3 or 4 hours in the late afternoon and evening. A Texas-rigged Senko pitched in some flooded timber yielded a smaller ~13" largemouth bass for Pops. I was sticking to my Rapala X-Raps. I felt like they were my confidence bait for the weekend, and I was eventually rewarded. A few other hookups with bass and a few very large black crappies kept our attention glued to the water until just before dark, when we motored back on the flowage and headed in to the campsite for the night.

Fish Count: 3 walleye, 2 rock bass, 3 largemouth bass

The next day, Saturday, I decided to set my sights on the north end of the lake. We filled up the tanks in the 18-footer and headed north up the flowage, reaching a few long spindly back bays with shorelines of rock and fallen timber. This looked like Pike central, and I decided to fish accordingly. I rigged up a gold-colored X-Rap on my Medium-Light spinning tackle, because I was feeling a little risky. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes of working the bay's shoreline, I hit success. I casted into some growing submergent vegetation. The water was near gin clear in this bay, and I saw a flash of shimmer as my X-rap got caught on some early-growth lily pad stalks. I yanked to pull it free from the early growth, and in an instant a black log shot in from a peripheral and inhaled my lure. My heart rate shot from 6 to midnight, and I worked delicately to corral this beautiful pike with my tackle. There was no horsing to be done here, I had to really work this fish if I wanted to land it.

A two minute fight finished with me holding a 28", 7 pound beauty of a pike. It was slightly overcast at the time, around 11 in the morning, with almost no wind.

The rest of the day we fished back bays, and we all continued to hook into hammer handle pike. None neared the size of my first of the day, but they were all fun to work into the boat. The lures that worked best on the pike that day were Rapala X-Raps in sizes 08 and 10, silver-blue and gold. Also, Daredevle spoons, the red-and-white and black-and-white varieties hooked us into some aggressive pike.

Final Fish Count: 3 walleye, 2 rock bass, 3 largemouth bass, 6 pike

After a fun few days of fishing, the weekend wrapped to a close and we had to get headed back to reality. The flowage proved tough, once again, but its resistance eased slightly, as we began to understand it's nuances more over time. As always, persistence and confidence are key when working a new body of water.

Tight Lines!

Fishing Log: Fish Lake Reservoir -- Fredenberg Township, MN

Walleye opener in Minnesota is more or less a federal holiday. It's a terribly exciting time to be an Angler if you appreciate walleye, pike, or just plain getting out on the water and enjoying the (hopefully) spring like weather.

Mother nature had other plans, however. We awoke on Saturday, May 9th to 50 degree overcast skies with 5-20 mph gusting winds from the Northeast. A cold front had rolled in over night. Things were going to be difficult, but its the Minnesota walleye opener, what are you going to do, not fish?

I've written before about my less than gracious opinion of shore fishing. However, it's better than not fishing at all. So, with our tackle boxes and a few tackle setups, me and my fishing buddy Adam headed out to the St. Louis Bay.

Our first destination was the Munger Landing, where I fished last year on opener. I did a detailed fishing report for that spot if you want to know more about it. For now, I'll jump to the meat of it: the spot isn't really smashing, and the dock was filled with anglers. It made no sense to me, with weather like we had I thought we would be alone. Alas, we loaded the truck back up and headed further up the estuary to a more secluded landing.

Upon arriving at the Boy Scout Landing in Fond du Lac, we were met with the exact same situation. The parking lot was hectic as can be, and the dock was filled from edge to edge with people bumping elbows. The exact opposite of a peaceful day on the water. I wasn't going to have it.

We got back in the car and broke out Plan F: make a drive inland for one of the Arrowhead region's vast reservoirs. We figured heading 30 minutes inland would get us away from the hustle and bustle, and hopefully give us some room to spread our wings a bit. Our destination? Fish Lake Reservoir.

Fish Lake is a very large reservoir, an impediment on the Beaver river. The lake has respectable populations of walleye, pike and crappie. This day, we were going to head for the damn on the northwest end of the reservoir. About 150 yards of rip rap lie on either side of the small dam outlet. We arrived and found the rip rap completely free of fishermen. Our placement put us in a little cove with the wind directly in our face. The combination of rocks, steady wind blowing in, and a secluded eddy away from the main lake basin looked very attractive to us.

We expected the shallow water adjacent to the rip rap to be holding walleye, and as such, rigged up basic 3/8-oz jigs and minnows. We casted the entirety of the little inlet for about 30 minutes, with little luck. Then, with the suddenness of a broken shoelace, it happened. Adam had his jig and minnow bottom bouncing in, about 20 feet from shore, when his line drew tight and his pole bent over.

"Fish on," Adam shouted. I set my tackle down and ambled over the rocks toward him. A few quick drags drew line away from shore, but his Abu Garcia Cardinal STX-20 performed admirably in working the fish in. A flash of white belly had us thinking he had walleye, but upon closer inspection, it was a trim, 24" northern pike. He quickly landed the fish, unhooked, and released before I was able to snap a picture. "We'll get a pic of the next one," he said, a little unsure if there really would be a next one on a day like today.

27"

Deciding to act upon the new found information, I figured I would break out my best pike confidence lure: Daredevle spoons. I rigged up a 3/4-oz red and white spoon on my medium-heavy Fenwick, and on my first cast out into the bay was greeted with a thump on the end of my line. After reeling in a 27" pike, I casted again in the exact same spot and drew out a much slimmer 20" hammer handle. We had hit a theme, and stuck with it. Both of us rigged up spoons and continued to crush the pike the rest of the morning.

When we went to the local bait shop on our way back to Duluth, we asked the clerk if he had heard anything from fishermen about their mornings. "Slow," was about all he had to say. Upon further probing, he more or less said that the cold front combined to make fishermen antsy to get off the water, and fish tight lipped. When we said we had each caught a handful of pike in the previous hours, he remarked we were some of the only successful fishermen of the morning that he had heard of.

The lesson here? Play the cards you're dealt. A windy cold day could've turned us away. Our first two fishing locations being overcrowded should've. But instead, we stuck with it, and decided to stay focused. We were rewarded.

I like to think, if you spend enough time on the water, it all evens out in the end. The bad days are offset with the really memorable ones.

I'm not just talking about fishing anymore, am I? We'll leave the philosophy for another post.

Tight Lines!