Open Water Fishing in January!

Tired of sitting in front of one hole all day long on a frozen lake?  There are many places in Wisconsin that offer good open water fishing all year round.  I recently spent a day with Keri Solis of www.bearsolis.com in search of some open water fishing.  In my area the Wisconsin river, Beaver Dam River and Lake Columbia and  lowell dam have all been producing good open water fishing.  If we didnt have the video camera along with us people may not have believed we could catch 20 inch bass all day long in open water on New Years Eve!

If you only ice fish for something to do to pass the time while waiting for spring fishing I encourage you to throw a line in any open water you can find and I bet you will find fish.  Just like ice fishing make sure you downsize your lures and line.  Slow down your presentations and hang on for some awesome open water winter fishing!

Battling the Crowds on Fox Lake

I was ice fishing last Saturday with my 6 year old out on Fox Lake.  We fished off of Black Hawk Trail and had about 100 other people around us.  Another guy I was fishing with said "At least there isnt many people out today."  He meant what he said as I heard that the crowds have more then doubled this last week.  By the weekend there will be more people on the lake fishing then there will be in the actual city of Fox lake.  There are dozens of reports online right now that people have caught giant pike in the Fox Lake Jug and have found huge schools of crappies off Kuno Trail and Black Hawk.  If you consider there will be thousands of people fishing then of course some people will get fish.  As for me and Leo we ended up with 2 small crappies and a few misses. 

There are easier lakes to fish right now that will provide faster action then fox.  The North side of Beaver Dam off Hickory Point is hot right now.  Lake Emily is always good for gills and lots of flags.  Lazy Lake is still producing gills as well.  I am hoping to get out a few times over the holidays and will report back.

Winter Buzz Bait Action!!

Who would have thought that on a cold day just after Thanksgiving we would be slaying them on the Red Dragon Buzz Baits!     Leo and I fished a stretch of River near Lake Columbia in Portage County.  We ended up with about 100 fish in total.  No real giants but fast and furious action made this trip a huge success.   We spent almost as much time walking to our spot as we did fishing today.  Getting our feet stuck in mud, slipping on ice and constantly getting our lines tangled in trees was well worth it at the end of the day.  We caught 2 pike, about a dozen gills and nearly 100 bass.  The largest of the bass was about 15 inches with most in the 12-13 inch range.  Leo at 6 years old caught his first bass on a buzz bait/bait caster combo.  100% of my fish where caught on the Red Dragon Buzz Bait.  Leo switched to a Mizuno crank bait and couldnt keep them off the line.  It wouldnt be fishing if we didnt have tales of "the one that got away"  well we did lose 2 that broke us off that seemed like giants.  Those fish could have been anything from carp to muskies we will never know!

On our way home from fishing the rivers we stopped at the Lake Columbia launch and actually saw a guy catch a nice WIPER!  If you havnt caught one of these fish before they are some of the best fighting fish in any Wisconsin water.  Unfortunately he kept the 19 inch fish.  You are with in your rights to keep legal fish from these waters but over pressure has almost depleted the fish population in Lake Columbia.  Please practice catch and release!

Storm Wild Eye Minnow

Everyone is always giving me a hard time because I own my own lure company and tend to promote the company in many of my reports.  By the way if you didnt know please check it out at www.reddragonlures.com

Well if I had to pick 1 lure right now to use that wasnt my own it would be one of the new Storm Wild Eye Lures.  These baits are awesome!!   Several weeks ago before this major cold snap I caught 100s of giant crappies and some big bass on this bait.  Fish would eat other swim baits I threw at them but I didnt have the hook up percentage that I did with the STORM lures.  That treble hook got em every time!!  I am saving my money right now and I am going to stock up on these in the spring.  I believe this will be one of my go to baits next season.

From Storms website....
Storm's Wildeye Live Shiner has a realistic body shape, swims like a live baitfish and is prerigged. Strong soft plastic material has internal holographic swimmin' flash foil, holographic WildEyes and natural color patterns.


My 6 year old Son lots of fish casting to rocky shorelines and I caught most of my fish skipping under docks.  In 2 weeks of testing the lure we caught crappies, largemouths, white bass and 1 surprise catfish. 
Here a picture of some big crappies caught on Beaver Dam Lake with the STORM Lure. 

The Bass are Biting at Lake Columbia

After a 4 week stretch of cold weather and slow fishing on local lakes my 6 year old Son and I decided to try Lake Columbia.  I usually make it out several times each winter to fish the lake for wipers and cats and this was my first trip to the lake before a snow fall.  If you havnt fished Lake Columbia before you should know it is a cooling water for the Alliant Energy Corporation.  The lake stays 80 degrees all year and there fore wont freeze in the winter.  In years past the lake was an amazing fishery for bass but it has been on a steady decline for the last several years.  I believe that both people keeping fish and a fish kill has crushed the bass population.

last weekend Leo and I set out for cats, war mouths and gills and ended up running into a huge school of bass!!  It is extremely important to note that we did not catch the bass in the main lake but had to trek through the woods to the river to find bass.    The fish where small with the biggest only being 14 inches and most of them around 12 inches.  We caught them on Red Dragon Spinners, Red Dragon Jigs, and STORM Swim Jigs.  I cant get enough of these new STORM Swim jigs and I will make another post later this week about my recent success with this lure.

Lake Columbia doesnt always put out the bass like it did that day for us - I told my Son Leo on the way home that someday he will tell his kids about this epic trip of catching 100 bass in an hour and 1/2!