Fishing Report – Wisconsin River, Below the Lake Delton Dam

This past weekend, my entire family, (parents, siblings and spouses, and everyone’s kids – all 25 of us) descended upon Mount Olympus in Wisconsin Dells.  I had debated packing some fishing gear… but decided against it. Thankfully my nephew, Nathan, decided otherwise and packed 2 rods and some tackle. We snuck away Saturday and Sunday morning while everyone else slept for some fishing.  Nathan found some likely spots below the Lake Delton Dam, on the Wisconsin river that looked public accessible so off we went.

While Nathan worked on landing his carp in the background, I was busy catching smallmouths

It was 2 mornings of some great fishing.  The water was easily over 70 degrees, and the shad were spawning. Water clarity was 2′-3′ of stained water, and we primarily fished in under 8′ of water.  We found a concentration of smallmouth and whitebass who near the surface busting on schools of shad and shiners, and another school of smallmouth closer to the dam.

Nathan dominated the fishing on Saturday with a white double-tailed grub on a jighead, while I dominated Saturday a Storm Arashi Rattling Squarebill in a Hot Chartreuse Shad color.  Both days the fish seemed to respond to faster and more accurate retrieves.  On Saturday grinding the squarebill into the rocky and sandy bottom was by far the most dominant technique. When the fish hit, they just slammed it. In the 3 hours we were out on Saturday, we managed caught at least 10+ fish each with the smallmouths primarily in the 14 – 18′ inch range, and a personal best sheepshead that darn near yanked the rod out of my hand when it smoked the Storm Arashi Rattling Squarebill.  All told we managed to catch 8 different species of fish.