A Few Days Early

Dan Elsner of Get Bit Baits shows the sort
of fish the waters around Sturgeon Bay normally
produce by the dozens early in the season.

The spring wake-up showed signs of getting going yesterday in Little Sturgeon Bay, and word we heard suggested that it was happening throughout the area. No crazy catch numbers, but fish caught and spotted in normal early areas. Plentiful sun on Sunday and yesterday clearly has fish moving up into the bays and within a couple of days the fishing should be absolutely off the hook. Unfortunately, I won't get to see it because I fly out of town today.

Virtually every spring, the best Sturgeon Bay fishing of the entire year occurs on the first few days after Wisconsin's bass season opens. This year was the exception. The ice only broke up a few days before the season, and the water just wasn't warm enough, soon enough, for the fish to start moving up into the bays. In fact, the ice still isn't completely gone. There are still a couple of  huge sheets of ice out floating in the main bay, and we could see one of them near the horizon from Little Surgeon Bay while we fished yesterday.

Fishing was tough, and I know that was hard for Dan Elsner of Get Bit Baits, who was eager to show off the spectacular smallmouth fishery just outside of his back yard. I still enjoyed learning about the area and getting out there, and I'm confident that we did all the right stuff to try to find the fish. It was just a weird opener, and we were a few days early.

I don't fly home today. Instead, I fly to Buffalo for another round of Great Lakes fishing. The ice lingered for a long time in Lake Erie, too, so it will be interesting to see what I find at that end. I suspect if Erie is way behind as well we might focus most efforts on trout and salmon in the lower Niagara River. I'll get plenty of reports after I get to town tonight, I'm sure.

Delight & Dread

Little in fishing blends delight and dread quite like a jumbo smallmouth going fully areal. I experienced that in a big way today. As soon as I set the hook, this fish came straight up, and as she flopped in mid-air, well out of the water, we actually thought her to be even bigger than she was. And of course she wasn't done. Despite my best efforts to hold her low with the rod, she jumped two more times (although neither of the others was a high as the first).

Dread, of course, was magnified by the fact that big fish haven't come easy this week. My fish was one of four smallmouths that came in the boat, and that was better than most people have been experiencing for the past couple of days. Normally, you wouldn't think twice about losing a smallie -- even a big one -- in this area during opening weekend because it would be one of dozens. However, this year's Wisconsin bass opener has been tough on virtually everyone in the Sturgeon Bay area and even south through the lower Green Bay area, where we were today. Winter was so cold that everything is behind and most fish seemingly just haven't moved up into the bays yet. One day soon it will be amazing. Hopefully tomorrow we'll see a good hint of that. We're fishing Little Sturgeon Bay.

My big jumping fish hit a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube, fished on a 1/8 ounce head inside-style tube head.

Cold Water

Word is that the waters around Sturgeon Bay are seriously cold, as in mid 30s and low 40s, which is a good 5 degrees lower than normal. I'm not sure how that will affect the bass bite because the season just opened this morning, but we'll find out very soon! I'm rigged and ready to rumble.