Northwoods Bass 2017 Early Season Forecast

My spring return to the Minocqua area was greeted by a major dumping of snowfall and rainfall that has flooded rivers and streams. Despite that, the Ranger is in the shop this week, receiving its finishing touches on 2017 season upgrades. Also, the yard for the most part is finally raked and tidied up. Now I can go fishing following the upcoming weekend opener.

My personal season opener this year will be either Monday or Tuesday May 8th or 9th. While my desk job and schedule prevents me from fishing the statewide opening weekend most years, I’m sending this pre-opener newsletter to give you a report, and an early spring fishing forecast for our immediate Vilas and Oneida County region.

Spring bass fishing arrives with high anticipation and excitement for me annually. You never really know what kind of curveballs Ma Nature will throw our way though. Weather and water temperatures can be uncomfortably warm and hot like they were in May 2016…. Or we can get dumped on by more snow and 30 degree weather like we got in May 2015. However and wherever you decide to fish for the opener and first few weeks of May, always consider what the weather will be doing, what the lake temperature readings are, and activity levels of fish. No reason to force-feed fish into biting. Fish smarter and not harder; take what the fish give you and plan your fishing strategies according to what’s received.

I recently spent a few hours on the water this past weekend, to wake up the Ranger and get a quick fishing fix in between my boat work in the garage. Water temperatures on main lake areas were a chilly 45-46 degrees. Meanwhile in shallow vegetated bays and backwaters, while chasing bluegills and crappies, I registered 50 to 52 degrees. Lots of panfish were moving in for the upcoming spawn. Some largemouths were caught by accident too. LMB’s of all sizes will be infiltrating these shallow marshy locations for feeding and spawning in the coming days.

Water temperatures fell 5 to 8 degrees last week. I’m sure they took a slight plunge from the system that came these last two days. It’s a good bet that shallow backwaters and bays, heavily vegetated areas, and stream inflows will have some of the better largemouth fishing for opening weekend and the early parts of May.

The beauty and allure of northwoods Wisconsin bass fishing is the diversity of lake types and wide range of bass fisheries. Every single lake in the 4 county radius I cover each fishes differently and offers something unique and different to bass anglers. What’s common to every lake in the northwoods however is that each lake possesses a warm water location. Every lake possesses these unique spring season warming zones. It could be a bay, a backwater, a rocky shoal, a shallow sandy feeding flat, a staging location, and a spot with immediate direct exposure to sunlight. Look for such areas for your immediate largemouth bass and smallmouth bass fishing this next week and reap the rewards of locating heavy concentrations of active, feeding prespawn fish

Lake Conditions Are Great

Besides cold, abnormal water temperatures, I have some good things to report. Weedgrowth looks pretty good. Cabbage beds and lilly pads are sprouting. The shallows are waking up with life from panfish and baitfish. Many lakes are filled to capacity. This will make lake access and launching your boat easy. If your favorite fishing lake was in a drought period, as we had for the last decade, expect that lake to be full once again. Its fish should also be mostly unpressured too.

For Saturday’s season opener and Sunday, I would definitely focus on lakes that are a part of a drainage system, or are shallow, darker water, and warm quickly. Fish should recover from this week’s coldfronts and low pressure quicker on these waters.

Looking at the upcoming 10-day forecast, we’re in pretty good shape starting Thursday and through next week. Daily highs in the low 50’s to 60’s with sun and above-freezing overnight lows will lead to consistency and a gradual warming trend.

Overnight lows in the 30’s are bad. This time of year I want our nights to be 40 degrees and warmer so not to impact bass and their shallow movements negatively. Slow warming trends in spring leads to positive fishing, and very consistent and predictable fishing. Sunlight makes smallmouths and largemouths happy, and leads to much improved fishing. I hope this upcoming forecast holds up. My only concern is too many days of winds coming from the north. A south and westerly wind in spring is dynamite. But who’s complaining over 60 degrees and sunlight for mid May. Not me.

River Floods and High Water Alert

If planning to fish the rivers this month, I advise staying away from them through mid month. The Wisconsin River in Vilas and Oneida Counties is the highest it’s been in several years. Lots of rain, in addition to the Eagle River Chain and Rainbow Flowage at full capacity has led to high flooded waters, a volume so great that the skinny upper stretches of the Wisconsin River system cannot support.

Many creeks, streams, and smaller tributaries are swollen, but they recede quickly and will be fishable. Specific stretches of the Wisconsin River (upper parts in Vilas & Oneida Counties) for the most part will not be. If fishing Tomahawk and south (Lake Mohawksin, Lake Alice), the river downstream of there is fine.

I wasn’t able to take a drive along my stretches of the upper Wisconsin this weekend to get some photos and to assess my spring river float trip situation, so I’m sharing photos from Rhinelander area guide, Dan Gropengiser. These were taken April 23rd, just north of Rhinelander Flowage.

I’ve been checking the USGS streamflow gauges almost daily and there is no immediate recession of river water levels in sight. I’ve already told a handful of visiting anglers and river rats that I would stay away from river fishing at least through May 15th. Even by Memorial Day weekend I’m unsure if any small boat and watercraft fishing could be safely done.

For reference at the Rainbow Dam, under normal conditions, the dam discharges 350 to 600 cubic feet per second. That’s the safest, best, and most ideal rate of flow for wading, shore fishing, and floating by boat. Today, output is at 1,940 cubic feet per second. Gage height under normal conditions is usually 1-1.5ft. Monday it peaked at 4.64 ft.

My spring float trips for smallmouth bass will not likely happen this spring, which will be a first since May & June, 2014 and 2013.

This high water will assure a very poor year class of smallmouth bass hatchlings. A good percentage of fish migrate upstream from the flowages (Rhinelander and Rainbow) to spawn in the river environment where rock and hard bottom habitat is more suitable for nesting. High water and poor upstream migration conditions will likely keep those fish at bay in the flowages where they winter and spend majority of the year in.

I make a big deal about fishing rivers and flowages early season because they warm quickly, have consistent early spring (month of May) fishing, and the bass movements are 1-2 weeks ahead of schedule than most other places. River conditions have changed this.

Flowages will be high, swollen, and more shoreline habitats will become available this spring. Be careful of floating debris, and navigational hazards. I do not advise on any fast travel and running and gunning unless equipped with good mapping. Water clarity will be piss poor too. Capitalize on bank beating and locating smallmouths tight to shoreline cover and structure. Knowing where hard bottom shoreline areas are located will pay off, as smallmouths will identify them as makeshift spawning grounds. Fishing coves and creek arms will be good too, and locating clear water. Spring fishing this year will be a bit different than most other years. Rainbow Flowage, Rhinelander Flowage & Boom Lake, and Turtle-Flambeau Flowage are all at full pool and who knows how much higher they’ll go.

Looks like Ma Nature is screwing all us river rats over in spring 2017. I will not be doing any smallmouth float trips in May until further notice. Flowages on the other hand, will be visited and tried but approached with very low expectations, and unless growing bored with the usual suspects. Both the Rainbow Flowage, and Turtle-Flambeau Flowage will be visited at some point.

May 2017 Fishing Forecast

The fertile backwater systems, marshes, side channels and thoroughfares of large lake chains will lead hungry largemouths to an awakening oasis of underwater life. The same will be expected of shallow, marshy, boggy and heavily vegetated eutrophic lakes. These waterways warm rapidly, and are scattered throughout the landscape of Wisconsin’s Vilas and Oneida counties. These are my favorite early season largemouth bass waters. There’s never a dull moment fishing them!

Largemouth Bass will begin their spawning movements once water temperatures reach 60 degrees. Favorite methods to target fish when water temperatures are in the 40’s and 50’s is with chatterbaits (Check out Z-Man’s Freedom Chatterbait!), swimbaits like the 3 inch Storm WildEye Shad, StanxBaitco. Swimz (still have not tried the new DR5), Strike King Swim Jigs, Super K Swim Jigs (Locally made in St. Germain WI!) and lipless crankbaits such as the Strike King RedEye Shads.

Target largemouths on establishing weedlines, shallow vegetation and shorelines, piers, laydowns, areas near spawning locations, and wherever baitfish are present. This time of year I rarely fish depths greater than 8 feet. Largemouths will be feeding heavily these next few weeks. It’s the best time of season to catch your heaviest largemouth bass of the year. Once water temperatures approach 60 degrees, I turn to a lure selection heavy on soft plastics such as stickbaits, creatures and craws. I slow my approach. Flipping and pitching jigs with craw trailers is a second favorite of mine.

By end of May, largemouths will be spawning on most waters. Despite Wisconsin’s free-for-all largemouth bass regulations, please release all trophy largemouths and all fish greater than 16 inches. It’s critical for fisheries and every lake that all females be released. Big bass for food consumption is gross to begin with. I have no problem however with responsible harvest of overabundant 12 inchers from the Minocqua Chain and infested fisheries of that nature as something must be done in order to make the bass fisheries and size structures healthier. Those eaters are great for the broiler, and I take my limit of 5 to help thin the herd every time.

Based on the upcoming 10 day forecast, I’m certain that most lakes will be ready for good smallmouth fishing. Other than the drainage systems I like to fish, I would proceed normally by fishing natural lakes (1,000 acres and less) as soon as next week. Hold off on the waters 1,000+ until 2nd and 3rd weeks of May.

For smallmouth bass, nothing beats a suspending jerkbait and fluke style minnow fished in May. 75% of all my fishing is done with both options. If any of you have read my reciprocal jerkbait article I wrote a few years back, this reveals my successful system for May smallmouth fishing and I apply it to every lake I fish. Note – this same piece is published in this month’s issue of Midwest Outdoors Magazine. Color plays a minimal role in comparison to presentation and execution. The other baits rounding out my May lure selection are swimming grubs, tubes, lipless crankbaits, squarebill crankbaits, and spinnerbaits all worked at one point or another.

By the time water temperatures get to 48 degrees, smallmouths will be activated for feeding, though a slow approach will be needed. Begin your preliminary search along known staging locations around depths of 8 to 12 feet. Fish will be setting up adjacent to their spawning sites, but holding and schooling in deeper water waiting for temperatures to warm. As weather warms and water temperatures climb into the low 50’s, smallmouths will be fired up and heavily feeding. By the time water temperatures reach 56 to 58 degrees, spawn time is upon us. Put the jerkbaits and hardbaits away in favor of soft plastics, finesse worms, jigworms, drop shotting, hair jigs, and topwaters.

During spawn, I do my best to avoid this period by fishing colder, deeper lakes that typically don’t see spawning until June. So, when the little lakes are nesting, go fish the biggest waters that are colder and still in a pre-spawn phase. By the time water temps are in the low 60’s and the big waters are in midst of spawn, revert back to fishing the smaller lakes where post-spawn feeding and movements have begun. I will even turn to largemouth bass fishing as they tend to spawn much earlier on some waters. In regards to fishing for spawners, I have no fun and personal glory in sight fishing bedding bass. I won’t tell folks how they should fish at this time. Just please minimize overhandling, overplaying, and return fish to their nests immediately.

Boat Upgrades 2017

Over the weekend I took the Ranger out from its overwintering storage location and we underwent upgrades and new addons for 2017. It began with an appointment at Dan’s Minocqua Tire Shop where I had a new set of highly recommended Maxxis tires installed to the Ranger Trail. What a great set of tires. Trailer will also be getting LED light units installed this week.

I then mounted and installed a new Lowrance Elite 12 TI screen to the front deck. I call it the big screen tv. This was an upgrade badly needed. This will be used with my bowmount transducer for down imaging and vertical jigging, in conjunction to being networked via. ethernet connection with my Lowrance HDS 12 at the console. The big screen up front, with the addition of being networked together for side imaging and having to run only 1 Navionics Platinum GPS chip for the boat will be a nice luxury for everyone who gets to experience the spaciousness of my huge front deck.

That’s enough writing for now. Northwoods Bass Fishing Adventures, LLC is ready to kick bass in 2017. I look forward to our scheduled fishing trips this month. Please note, I have all of my scheduled June fishing dates still available. Thank you.

May 2017, Remaining Available Dates
MAY: 12, 13, 16, 17, 22, 24, 31

June 2017, Open Dates & Availability
JUNE: 1, 2, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

July 2017, Open Dates & Availability
JULY: 1, 2, 30, 31

August 2017, Open Dates & Availability
AUGUST: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6