Chequamegon Bay & Hayward, WI Fishing Report 2-5-16

Hard to believe it’s Super Bowl weekend already…  What are we going to do without any football to watch???  Fish!  Chequamegon Bay is still kicking out some good mixed bag catches, but ice conditions continue to be challenging.  Big winds from the past week broke up quite a bit of ice, and pushed everything back into the bay.  Josh Teigen spent a morning out there with his friend Ryan from the Twin Cities, and the mixed bag trend continued.  They fished blade baits and tip-ups in 5′ – 45′ of water and put some really good fish on the ice including splake up to 24″, whitefish, and some small lakers.  That’s one heck of a splake, and they’re sure fun to catch!  In the afternoon they went inland for the walleye bite and had good action on tip-ups in 19′ – 27′ of water with the largest eye measureing 23″.  Chequamegon Bay/Inland combo trips are always a great way to spend a day when conditions are right, and it’s pretty cool to catch that variety of fish in one day.  Good stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Josh’s cousin Dan and friend Aaron joined the crew on the following day, and they spent a few hours on Chequamegon without a lot of luck.  They fished the same area as the day before but were only able to land a small splake and whitefish.  Welcome to fishing the big lake!  It can definitely be a “here today, gone tomorrow” kind of thing.  Lots of room out there for those fish to hide…  Unfortunately for them Josh is on the case, and he’ll figure it out!

Day three of the adventure was spent inland with Josh’s friends Clint and Mitch from the Twin Cities, and the walleyes continued to cooperate.  The gang iced some good fish up to 20″ on tip-ups in 15′ – 20′ of water.  The walleye bite is definitely an evening thing right now with mid day fish hard to come by.  Spend your day hopping around for panfish and pike, and have those walleye holes set a couple of hours before dark.  The mid winter pattern has set in.  There’s still plenty of fish to catch, you just might have to work at it a little.  Josh reports 7″ – 10″ of good ice from Ashland to Washburn, but anything north and east of there is NOT SAFE!  Inland lakes are sloppy with 8″ – 12″ of ice and lots of slush.  Snowmobile and ATV travel is o.k., but larger vehicles are definitely NOT recommended.  Don’t be that guy…  Have a great weekend everyone, and don’t eat too much chili and wings on Sunday.  You’ll pay for it Monday!!!