I was wondering if anybody lives or fishes around Hayward and wants to share some knowledge. I will be there the week of June 18 we are staying on a small lake north of Hayward I think it is smith lake but I would like to spend a couple days on a bigger lake like chippewa or grindstone lake. I would really like to catch a musky so I guess that would be my first choice and I think I would rather have numbers over size but I also like to eat fish so I would love to get into panfish or walleye too. I have my own boat and I have a Wisconsin lakemaster chip in my fish finder so that should help me a little. I have some assorted musky lures but not many I have a few buck tails, top water, and crank baits. As far as walleye go I have a good selection of jigs and cranks. Any help will be appreciated I don’t think I have a lot of time for fishing so I would like to make it count.

Troll. Then troll some more. Use buck tails outside reed beds and along the outside of deep cabbage beds. Troll.

Osky

Ok thanks, I am more set up to troll with my reel setups but want to try casting also. And just for a heads up I’m fairly experienced at lunching my boat and courteous so this fib won’t be clogging the boat ramps

Chippewa Flowage: Surface baits along steep wooded shorelines near dark, bucktails on shallower bars and weed edges

Walleyes: Weedless jig/minnow or jig/leech in deep shoreline brush or 15-25' humps. Walleyes have been poor last 2 years. If you hit the large mayfly hatch go golfing.

Panfish (crappies and big bluegills) : Same humps as walleyes. Straight down with tiny jigs and Gulp bait.

Good luck

If you can squeeze a day trip canoeing while fishing for smallmouth bass and musky, I highly recommend the north fork of the Flambeau River. About an hour due east and south of Hayward. Contact Big Bear Lodge near Winter for rental rates (if you don't have a canoe) and they will shuttle you regardless of renting or not.

Most folks just paddle this stretch, very few fish it. The smallie fishing is fantastic and in the deep pools there are musky. The only place I've caught three muskies on three consecutive casts.

You can camp along this river, in approved sites only. First come, first served. Go in the middle of the week.

https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/forestmanagement/documents/pub/FR-130.pdf

Anyway, just a thought. Maybe another trip.

I fish the chip every year. When I started going there it was muskies only. Cast,cast and more casts.And no fish! Maybe a bass or northern but no muskies.Back then you couldn't troll,now you can.

So after 4 yrs. of practicing my casting,I stopped fishing them. Went back to fishing for whatever that was biting and caught fish.

Don't get me wrong there are HUGE muskies in the chip. Just I've never got one. I even hired a guide for a day and never caught a fish. Neither did he. It's a big lake with different ways to fish it.

As far as scenery you can't beat it. Absolutely beautiful!!

If you're after numbers of muskies and not the size check out the Spider chain. Has lots of smaller fish with a chance at a bigger fish.

My GF got a 38"er on her 1st time musky fishing using a topwater in the evening. 1 Fall I was there and in a week of fishing the muskies wrecked a bucktail. All the hair was about gone. It was basicly a piece of wire with a blade and hook and they still hit it.

Spider is only 1500 acres so its easier to fish. The biggest fish I seen in it was about 40". Not huge but a nice fish.

Brad

Go bass/walleye fishing and you will catch a musky!!!

PM sent

Try Moose Lk, if you wanna catch a few "good" musky.. most will be 35 -40 inch. Smaller dbl blades...dbl 8s throw anything as long as it is blk hair and orange blades. Pacemakers (topwater) are very productive. Blk/orange or dark green. Also the orange headed warlock, walk the dog style (sub surface) the 3 go to baits on the Moose...figure 8 every retrieve, or you'll miss most fish. Great big smallies on the rocks, every bar is bouyed, except for maybe 2....fish the rocks. Really nice sized crappies in Moose as well... and the best thing very little pressure..."the chip" is Norwegian for tons of pressure...on musky for sure...Teal and Lost Land are both really productive multi species lakes. Good luck

You will catch a bunch of walleye in Moose as well..full eater size fish...

lots of fish cribs on the Chip If you have a locator and a map you can catch some nice gills off those cribs. A few years ago I caught a 39" musky on 3Lb test fishing gills off one of those cribs.

If you can access Chief lake then go Into squaw bay you can just plain wear out some nice large mouth along with tons of northerns. I think they changed the name squaw bay to something more politically correct.

Eagles nest and popple Islands are good musky spots. Big Banana and little banana Islands are good walleye spots along with musky. There Is a rocky point off the east end of Big Banana.

There Is a public landing at Hay creek and that will get you to He**s half acre That's on Hwy B. There Is also a public landing on Double C. That would put you In some good water. I don't know If It's still called Herman's landing or not. Pete's bar is just west of Herman's and use to be a good musky spot.
IT's been a long time since I've been on the Chip but I use to fish It pretty hard.

Beav: Still called Herman's Landing but now owned by the tribe.

That's what I was afraid of.
The camp ground was owned by Northern Sates power back In the day. Did the tribe take that over to?

I tipped a few at Herman's back In the day. Use to be a big old black lab that wandered around In the bar.

Tribe owns the whole works. Good place to get minnows.

I fish the flowage a lot in the summer. usually put in at winter dam and fish walleyes around the islands and floating bogs. my great grandfather used to fish it every day and showed me a lot of good musky spots that he fished with louie spray.

Thanks for all the reply’s. The canoe trip thing sounds like it would be right up my alley but not anybody else that I am going with, but maybe I can talk them into it. For those that have caught panfish would slip bobbers with minnows or wax worms be good?

Be sure to give Big Bear Lodge a call regarding water conditions prior to making the decision/trip. And bring skeeter dope.

Psssst...Lost land lake/Teal lake=muskies. The chip is fun for nice crappie and walleye but it does get a lot of pressure so keep the tackle small and light. Fish the cribs, humps, and deeper weed edges

June 18th should be real close to the bluegill spawn.

The red house is the campground I used to stay at. The green fish are the shallow areas we always found gills early June. This was 10 years ago but somewhere to check. In the evenings we would also locate the floating bogs and park the bow of the boat on it and fish over the edge for crappies and gills.

It's not Hermans anymore. It's just called the Landing. Not sure if the native americans own it. Haven't been in there for awhile.

As far as fishing the cribs, good luck finding them!!The only map I ever found is in the Hayward visitors guide.

1 spot on the map shows and says 50 cribs. I looked for hrs. one day and never found 1 of them. I talked to a local about them and he just laughed. Was their WERE cribs there 30-40 yrs. ago. Since then they have rotted away. He said the DNR has put new cribs in but never made maps of where they were because they would get overfished.

The local declined to tell me where some cribs were. He just said theirs some around this island, that bay,etc.

So if there is a newer map with the cribs I would like to buy one!

Brad

Well I had a local guy show me a map showing the cribs. Don't know where he got It.
WE also got a Gps chip for the locator and I believe that also showed the cribs. But It has been a long time.

I can't find my map. But I have a letter from a DNR fisheries guy that tells me there are 6 cribs In Chief lake near the jcts of Squaw and Tyner lakes. Those cribs are In about 20 feet of water. WE did find them and caught some nice gills.