Wisconsin Fishing Guide Mike Mladenik

Fishing Articles

Menominee River Splash
Bounty makes it an angler’s paradise
July 26, 2008

Paul Smith
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal Outdoors Editor

Crivitz - The mid-morning sun is playing "now you see me, now you don't" as puffy clouds race across the Marinette County sky. One minute the Menominee River is cloaked in shade, obscuring its subsurface features. The next, as if condensation were cleared from eyeglasses, bright light penetrates the tea-colored water, revealing the river's mysteries.

Here a cluster of boulders, there a log, long and straight as a telephone pole. Upstream lies a rock bar, downstream a sandy flat peppered with clam shells.

The sun takes another temporary leave. But another secret emerges from the darkened depths just the same.

"Whoa," says Mike Mladenik of Crivitz. "We might use the net on this one."

The gift of sight is not required to know a fish is at the end of Mladenik's line. The fish leaps and splashes and peels drag from his reel.

When I grab the net and finally turn toward Mladenik, a smallmouth bass is turning its broad flank to the current some 10 feet off the bow.

"Stalemate," says Mladenik, admiring the fish's spirit and strength.

The fish eventually tires after a series of runs and I slide the net under a handsome 17-inch smallie. Mladenik plucks the hook from the roof of its mouth and turns it back to the river.

"What do you say, drift that stretch again?" says Mladenik. OK, twist my arm.

I've joined Mladenik for a day of fishing on a stretch of the Menominee known as Grand Rapids Flowage. This 22-mile piece, between the Grand Rapids Dam and the White Rapids Dam, typifies this 118-mile river that forms the northeastern border between Wisconsin and Michigan - top-notch fishing and scenery.

Mladenik, 53, grew up outside of Chicago and moved to Crivitz to work as a carpenter. When he started working more with rods and boats than hammers and saws, he switched vocations. He has been guiding on the Menominee for the last 28 years.

"This is world-class smallmouth fishing," says Mladenik, noting he has clients from as far as Texas and California. "Why? Because none of them have fishing like this."

He now fishes about 160 days a year, most of it on rivers within 50 miles of Crivitz. The smallmouth action is particularly good June through October, says Mladenik, with the biggest fish often coming in the fall.

The Menominee has been a hardworking river for much of the last two centuries. There was a time when the area's white pine and hemlock were cut and floated to Green Bay, heavily scarring the banks and denuding the landscape. Later the river was dammed for hydroelectric power.

The banks have healed naturally over time and many stretches of the flowages between dams have taken on the character of a free-flowing, wilderness river. More than half of Grand Rapids Flowage features undeveloped shores, studded with white pine and spiced with white birch.

Smallmouth are present in extraordinary number and size in the Menominee River system. A 2001 Department of Natural Resources survey of the Upper Scott Flowage on the Menoninee found 6-year-old smallmouth averaged 17 inches in length, fully 2 inches longer than the state average for smallies of the same age.

"There is an excellent forage base and good spawning habitat in the river," said Mike Donofrio, DNR fisheries supervisor based in Peshtigo. "It's a great, natural fishery that keeps producing."

The Menominee isn't unique in northeastern Wisconsin - Donofrio says the Peshtigo and Oconto rivers also offer great smallmouth fishing.

Surveys in all three rivers routinely turn up smallmouth over 20 inches - heavy, football shaped-fish that are typically at least 10 years old. Donofrio related a story of a scuba diver in the Menominee hand-feeding crayfish to opportunistic smallmouth.

That event may speak to the density, aggression and / or curiosity of smallmouth. It certainly points out a preferred food source.

"Anything that looks or acts like a crayfish gets hammered here," says Mladenik.

At times it's difficult to concentrate on the fishing. The air is scented with pine and the water winds around uninhabited islands. The area is rich with wildlife. In the first half-hour on the water, a family of common loons, two adults and a brown-headed adolescent, fishes near us and a bald eagle flaps overhead. Later a 5-foot sturgeon leaps from the water near our boat.

White-tailed deer and black bear are common in the area. Mladenik once encountered a bruin swimming across the Menominee.

The river offers a precious "Up North" quality that complements the fishing.

Mladenik repositions the boat upstream for another drift. A stout northeast wind funnels down the river, riffling the surface and buffeting the boat. Mladenik uses the bow-mount trolling motor to control the boat's drift, keeping us about 50 feet from shore.

"So much for the weatherman," says Mladenik, noting a southwest wind was predicted.

River fishing is more affected by water flows than weather, says Mladenik, so the missed forecast is of little concern. Once summer sets in and dam discharges are held fairly constant, the fishing action is dependably good. Or better.

"You can have a cold front blow through and shut down fishing on lakes, but you'll still have great fishing on the river," says Mladenik. "And there's no need to get here at the crack of dawn. I've caught some of the best fish at noon."

Mladenik and I hit the water about 9 a.m. The action starts in the first minutes, with smallmouth from 10 to 18 inches providing steady action.

We use a simple, extremely effective presentation to catch all but one of the fish: 4-inch, wacky-rigged plastic worms. This technique has gained recognition in the last decade and is now widely used by bass anglers across the country - the artificial worm is hooked in the middle, rather at one end.

A wide variety of worms is commercially available with features geared to wacky rigging. Some are impregnated with salt, which helps control the lure's density and sink rate. Others have a garlic scent. Still others have metallic flakes. And the color variety is endless.

We cast the lures out and watched our line as the bait drifted down in the water column. Most hits occurred on the initial drop.

Mladenik says some logs never made it to the mill and now sit at the river bottom, providing habitat for smallmouth and other fish. We catch fish on timber, over rocks, near grass beds and in water that has no structure at all.

In a leisurely morning and early afternoon of fishing, we catch and release 35 smallmouth, the biggest a 4-pound, 19-inch fish. We see only two other fishing boats.

After five hours, Mladenik motors back to the landing.

"In this river you get a hit and you don't know if it's 8 or 18 inches," said Mladenik. "But you always know you're going to catch fish."

The Fall Bite
Posted by Mike Mladenik (bigsmallmouth) on Apr 05 2009 at 8:09 AM
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The only problem I have in October is deciding what to fish for. Whether you are after a 40 pound musky, a 12-pound walleye or six pound smallmouth, the time is right in October. Sure there are those diehard fishermen who only chase after on specie. However, there are many like myself who prefer to fish for all species. This means taking advantage of every minute and spending your time wisely. This is no time to check out new water. Fisherman will do best by fishing water they know is productive and has produced trophy fish in the past.

Each year fisherman put in their time in hopes of landing a trophy musky in the fall. Pick a lake or flowage with a quality musky fishery that has produced trophy fish in the past. In the early part of October I will fish one of the many flowages in my area. As long as the water temperature stays above 40 degrees most of these flowages will see active muskies. The weedlines with access to the deepest parts of the flowage will hold the largest muskies. Both deep diving crankbaits and jerkbaits are productive baits. If you are fishing with a partner make sure you use both presentations. The best fishing will occur from mid day through the late afternoon.

I must admit that on some days you can go through every lure in the box without a follow, only to boat a big fish with a sucker. While guiding I feel that my odds of boating a musky are greatly decreased if we don't bring along sucker. The problem is many musky anglers don't effectively fish suckers. They usually toss out a big sucker on a float behind the boat without any consideration as to the structure they are fishing. I will fish two suckers at various depths to cover the bottom and top of the strike zone. One sucker is set at 5 to 10 foot depths while the other is five foot off the bottom. I use only quick strike rigs, since we are concerned about releasing the fish.

Once the water temperature drops below 40 degrees on your favorite flowage move over to a clear water natural lake. These lakes will produce right until ice up or the close of the season whichever comes first. Deep structure, points and weedlines are all productive, since these areas are close to deep water. Deep diving crankbaits are an effective presentation with my favorite being the Hydro Minnow Muskie by Yo-Zuri. The finish on these crankbaits is augmented by the oversized 3D eyes, integral gill plates and etched lateral line. http://www.yo-zuri.com Large plastic baits can also effective since they enable you to work all levels of the water column. My rod of choice when fishing crankbaits is a Lamiglas LGM 70 MH. http://www.lamiglas.com

The best feeding periods on natural lakes in the late occur at late afternoon. However, on overcast days muskies can move throughout the day. Like flowages don't go on the water without suckers.

Smallmouth also can put on the feedbag big time in the late fall. Choosing the proper lake is important. Clear water lakes with limited structure and a restricted forage base are the key. Many deep clear water lakes are home to giant smallmouth. However, in summer and early fall large fish are difficult to locate let alone catch them. By late October and early November food is limited and large smallmouth will school up. Once you locate the primary forage base on the lake smallmouth won't be far behind. Finding spawning ciscos is the key to smallmouth location. Besides having a population of big smallmouth it should be a lake void of muskies. Muskies will dominate the food chain and smallmouth movements will be unpredictable.

Don't make the mistake of only fishing big lakes. Small clear water lakes can hold a population of large smallmouth. Each year I boat a number of 20 inch plus smallmouth from a lake only 200-acres. This small lake which name I can't mention has a smelt forages base. A healthy smallmouth population exists since the walleye population has been decimated by spearing and over harvest. These smaller lakes are easier to fish with smallmouth schooling up and holding in one or two areas of the lake.

Forage is very limited on smaller lakes. In late fall these baitfish populations are dwindled and food is limited. Once you hone in on the forage you should find smallmouth. Use your electronics to spot schools of baitfish. These areas will be any offshore structure, shoreline points and steep shorelines. With cover limited you can find schools of big smallmouth stacking up over this cover. This was a similar situation that I mentioned earlier.

Don't make the mistake of only fishing big lakes.

Red tail chubs are my number one live bait for big smallmouth. I have had only limited success with suckers. However, if live bait is hard to obtain use what you can get. Mark a school of smallmouth and vertical jig with a jig and minnow combo. It is important to use the lightest jig possible, so you can feel the slightest pick up. If the bite is light use a plain Aberdeen hook with just enough weight to get the minnow to the bottom.

October is a time of plenty when it comes to boating large fish of all species. As I mentioned at the start of the article sometimes it is tough to decide which specie to chase.

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