Fishing on the Flambeau River
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I took a cast towards the riverbank, dropping the finesse bait next to a large rock. After two slow jigs, I started reeling it in like a jerk bait. I saw a flash of a fish moving to the bait and waited to feel some weight from the fish and I set the hook.
My trusty old medium heavy fast action St. Croix drove the hook home, and the fish responded by bending the pole to the max. The fish swam towards another large rock half the size of a Volkswagen Bug trying to wrap the line around it. I pulled hard on the rod and tried to reel, but the reel didn’t create enough leverage. The fish broke the surface and we saw a very nice small mouth bass. I didn’t want to allow slack in the line to gain line since the fish might shake the hook.
When the fish tired just enough for me to gain line, I reeled it away from the rock and worked it to the boat. Seconds seem like minutes when you hook a nice smallie; pound for pound possibly the hardest fighting fish in the water.
I fished that day with Goeff Roznak, the president of the Chippewa Valley chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society, and a friend of his, Brian Lengling. Both avid fishers who target musky and small mouth bass with fly fishing gear.
We floated a stretch of the Flambeau River in Goeff’s custom 16 foot drift boat. I float fished a lot of rivers over the years but never in a drift boat, and I’m saying that a drift boat provides a lot of versatility, that canoes and flat bottom boats don’t. It makes floating a river a lot easier and more enjoyable.
We planned on a six hour float launching about 10:15 in the morning. We reached the takeout point about 7:30 in the evening. We stopped the float a couple of times to re-rig a rod or two, but the reason we took nine hours to float that stretch of river simply stemmed from the number of fish we caught. We lost count, but we easily exceeded 20 fish with about 60% smallies, one nice walleye, and the rest northern pike. Any time you go fishing and lose track of the number of gamefish you caught, you call it a fabulous day.
That fish measured 18 ½ inches; we didn’t weigh it, just wanted to put it back in the water. We really didn’t get to watch it swim away, it rocketed into the deep when I put it into the water.
Floating rivers involves a lot of coordination and planning. Once you launch, you fish until you reach the pull out point, then someone either meets you or you drive a second vehicle back to the launch point to pick up the first vehicle and then back to the pull out point to pick up the boat.
The float itself constantly changes, sometimes in the same day depending upon the water level, sun, clouds, and rain. Often wilder than lakes, especially those with well-developed shorelines. The wildlife you see and the wild habitat make the extra work of float trips worth the extra effort. Catching close to 10 smallies doesn’t hurt either.
How the Chippewa Valley chapter of the RGS comes into play stems from a concerted effort of the RGS members to promote healthy forest habitats and work to spread that message to others. Like float trips, grouse hunting involves long hikes deep into habitat away from roads. You see different sites on those hikes than you do from the roads, just like floating rivers.
Goeff and some other chapter committee members that float rivers, offered a package that included a river trip hosted by one of those members. I won that package at the chapter banquet many years ago. It took several years to arrange a date that worked, but it happened this summer.
On my first cast, a fish nipped at the power bait I threw, and did the same on the fly Brian fished. A couple hundred yards later I picked up the first smallie of the day on a finesse bait. From that point on it seemed like whoever sat in the middle seat rowing spent most of the time netting fish. A truly amazing day on the water with technical river fishers.
Some of the best fishing of the year remains, take advantage. Tight lines everyone.
CHUCK BY
K OLAR THROUGH A
LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
