Tomahawk Leader Newspaper

Top Menu

  • eBooks
    • Tomahawk Leader
    • Tomahawk Leader Extra
  • Subscribe
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Message Board
    • Forum
    • Log In

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Nature
  • News
    • Government
    • Sports
  • Covid 19
  • Obituaries
  • Opinion
  • School
  • Tomahawk Fishing Report
  • Classifieds
    • View Ads
    • Place Ads
  • Legal Ads
    • Our Legals
    • Statewide
  • eBooks
    • Tomahawk Leader
    • Tomahawk Leader Extra
  • Subscribe
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Message Board
    • Forum
    • Log In

logo

Tomahawk Leader Newspaper

  • Home
  • Nature
  • News
    • Government
    • Sports
  • Covid 19
  • Obituaries
  • Opinion
  • School
  • Tomahawk Fishing Report
  • Classifieds
    • View Ads
    • Place Ads
  • Legal Ads
    • Our Legals
    • Statewide
NatureNewsTomahawk Fishing Report
Home›Nature›Fishing Report: Slab crappies on the Rainbow Flowage

Fishing Report: Slab crappies on the Rainbow Flowage

By Jalen Maki
September 8, 2020
1292
0
Share:

For the Tomahawk Leader

This week’s fishing report comes following a pretty successful trip to the Rainbow Flowage.

The Rainbow lies just east of Woodruff in Oneida County and is over 3,100 acres of Wisconsin River backwater. We accessed the flowage off of the Highway J public boat landing. Water levels have remained fairly high for this time of year on the flowages so access is good all over the Northwoods right now.

We fished the flowage on a crisp, sunny but windy day following a cold front coming through the area and knew we wanted to target crappies on this trip. But where do you start?

Crappies this time of year can be sketchy to say the least and scattered as well as usually suspended in deeper water. The cold front added another layer of difficulty. So, we relied on our electronics.

Our boat has a fairly nice locator on it but not by any means the top of the line or best unit out on the market. It does however have pretty good imaging and a side image view. So we trolled around with the bow mount trolling motor looking for sharp drop offs on the river channel edge just out from the boat landing and down river from there too. Eventually, and it didn’t take long, we hit a pocket of water that dropped from 6’ to 16’ in a distance of a cast or so. This looked like what we wanted to see, but where are the fish? Jigging didn’t seem to produce anything.

Then the electronics started to glow. What I would call “blobs” of fish started lighting up the screen, suspended fish at about 10 feet down. We immediately switched to slip bobbers and set them at that depth and tipped a plain hook with a crappie minnow. Bang! Fish on. Over the next hour or so we caught about a dozen 12- to 14-inch crappies out of this group until the “blob” scattered from our screen and we no longer were getting bites. Nice slab crappies.

We repeated the hunt like this several times, looking for other “blobs” of fish on the screen. Several times we found them only to start catching smaller size crappies. A different year class most likely, with no keepers to be had. We even had a group of perch that we ran into that were balled up the same way in a group like this; however, they were right near the bottom and not as suspended as the crappies were. The day was one of learning to read the locator and playing with our presentation.

All in all, the moral of this story is trust your electronics. They work. Oh and by the way, that dozen or so crappies made a great meal. Lightly breaded and seasoned, then pan fried in sizzling oil. Topped off with a hand muddled old fashioned was the perfect end to a great fishing day on the Rainbow.

‘Til next time, keep your line tight.

TagsFishing ReportRainbow FlowageSlab crappies
Previous Article

Watering station built at Tomahawk Dog Park ...

Next Article

Local veterans awarded Quilts of Valor

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Related articles More from author

  • NatureTomahawk Fishing Report

    Fishing with Jed “Big Musky” Buelow

    August 27, 2019
    By jbuelow
  • NatureTomahawk Fishing Report

    “Weather Wreaks Havoc on Fishing!”

    September 17, 2019
    By jbuelow
  • NatureNewsTomahawk Fishing Report

    Fishing Report: A big day for smallies on the Wisconsin River

    August 4, 2020
    By Jalen Maki
  • NatureNews

    Fishing Report: Walleye, crappie action on the Spirit Flowage

    August 18, 2020
    By Jalen Maki
  • NatureTomahawk Fishing Report

    Fishing Report: The bite is slow in 2021

    January 27, 2021
    By Jalen Maki
  • NatureTomahawk Fishing Report

    Fishing Report: Eagle Lake Variety

    February 2, 2021
    By Jalen Maki

  • Released Stock
    FeatureNews

    Convicted sex offender David J. Malsch residing in Merrill as of July 13

  • Highway 86
    FeatureNews

    Highway 86 road closure set to begin today (Tuesday)

  • Police Lights Stock
    FeatureGovernmentNews

    Town of Tomahawk Supervisor cited for disorderly conduct after threat during meeting

TOMAHAWK WEATHER

© 1998- Tomahawk Leader, Inc., Tomahawk WI
315 W Wisconsin Ave – P.O. Box 408
Waupaca, WI, 54981 – Phone: (715) 453-2151

Copyright © 2020 Multi Media Channels LLC.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted without the prior written consent of Multi Media Channels LLC.
×