Fishing in November

[BretRobert1]

Just had the good fortune to have an offer accepted on a cabin on the TFF. Planning on going up in mid-November to do some musky fishing. Do any of you roll-troll or drag suckers on the Flowage this time of year? If so, what kind of success have you had?

My permanent residence is in NW Illinois, and the lake I live by is currently turning over, so fishing has been quite slow of late.

I've spent the last couple weeks browsing through previous threads on this forum and enjoyed a lot of what I've read. Glad to be a part of this forum.

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

Congratulations on your cabin purchase. Welcome to the neighborhood and to this board. Two of our guests are heading out musky hunting with Jerkbait Jerry Hartigan Nov 1-3, 2012. I will try to report their success on Sunday or Monday evening.

[BretRobert1]

Thanks, Scott. Look forward to hearing how your guests do. I checked out your website, are you on Lake Bastine?

[the other andy]

I've had some success late fall out there. It's kind of tricky for a few reasons: fish tend to be deep, they can be found and caught shallow but most of the fish I've contacted late in the season were in 10 to 30 FOW. Best baits are suckers and lures that get down and can be fished slowly. So a guy is really limited to fishing the lakes, Bastine, Baraboo, Merkle, to name a few, where he can fish deeper without the fear of getting hung up and losing your $20 bulldawg or $8 dollar sucker. And just because you're fishing one of the lakes doesn't mean you won't get snagged, either. Plenty of stumps and rocks and cribs on the lakes that will catch your lures too. So my advice would be to stick to the lake basins and keep your suckers at least 3 feet off the bottom at all times or fish one of the dozens of lakes in the area that aren't loaded with stumps and snags. If you are going to fish outside of the basins keep your suckers just a few feet below the surface and use buoyant jerkbaits.

[Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC]

Our guests at Flambeau Vista Retreat had a very successful November musky hunt under the guiding of Jerry "Jerkbait" Hartigan. Nov. 1st, 2012 brought some very adverse conditions with temps never hitting 40 degrees for the day with a 15-20mph North wind and a few snow showers. Perfect musky conditions! Unfortunately, the muskies thought otherwise. There was only one northern to show for their efforts.

November 2, 2012 brought temps up to a balmy 41 degrees with the North wind still blowing, but sunny. At least there were no snow showers! The muskies decided that they enjoyed the sunshine in the afternoon as two muskies were caught. A 39" and a 40" fish met the net. One was caught on a sucker, while the other on a jerk bait. Nice job Jerry in guiding them to a memorable trip. They will be back.

Water levels have risen, so we are now only 3.5' below pool, which is quite normal for this time of year.

The walleyes are also putting on the feed bag with a good number of fish being caught on jig and minnow in the river channels, especially at the sharp bends.

A warming trend is predicted, so bring the fishing poles to go along with the grouse shotguns or deer rifles (Nov. 17-25) for some blast and cast adventures on the TFF.

First ice will most likely prove very successful for walleyes that will typically occur sometime in December.

Good luck to everyone in whatever you are chasing on the TFF, Wisconsin's Scenic Wilderness Waters Area.

See www.turtleflambeauflowage.com for info on area guides, lodging and food.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!