Austin Stankowski
Junior Staff Outdoor Writer
August 21, 2012
Lac Du Flambeau—We were staying at a friends cabin in Minoqua. We were having fun in the sun tubing and water skiing. That night we decided that the next morning we were going to go fishing. So the next morning we woke up and at eleven in the morning we went to the Lac Du Flambeau Tribal Fish Hatchery.
When we got there the sign said open so we went down to the pond and started to fish. Fishing is free, but if you catch a fish you have to keep it and pay $4. As we walked down to the pond we saw literally thousands of trout swimming in the clear pond. You can use the gear they provide, which is a cane pole with line and a hook and buy bait there, or you can bring your own.
We tried a variety of presentations including spinners and worms ourselves. Another guy came with his family and was using a fly rod. We didn’t catch anything at first but then we figured out what the trick was.
First up was Teagan. My dad set her up by giving the fish a perfect presentation, he set the hook and she reeled in a big rainbow trout, maybe seventeen inches. This technique of dad spotting the big ones and putting the bait in front of them worked for all of us kids, including our buddy Dane and new friend Keaton. It was Cade’s turn and he caught a really nice one, you could see how happy he was with the smile on his face even if this was a small trout pond.
The Lac Du Flambeau tribe provides this pond as a public relations initiative with the surrounding area. They raise a variety of fish that they restock on tribal lands. The focus is on walleyes, but they also stock muskies and sturgeon. The trout for the most part are used in the ponds. At four dollars a fish, it is a pretty good deal considering we didn’t catch anything under seventeen inches.
We caught fish in spurts and the action would be steady for a while and then it would die down. It was fun looking for the king of the pond. There were a few trout that were well over twenty inches. Tommy ‘Mac’ McBurney says that the biggest one ever measured was twenty seven inches. Keaton caught one that was about twenty one inches and it put up a great fight. I had a big one on that I hooked on a bare hook. I tried horsing it in and didn’t have the drag set right and it snapped the line. Dad fixed it after that incident. We took turns catching the fish in order and when you weren’t catching the fish with dad we either were goofing around or looking from above for the king fish. We finally spotted one of the bigger ones and it was Cade’s turn. The big guy was separated from the school and hanging out towards us in a bit shallower water. Dad went and put the baited hook in front of it and he bit, so dad set the hook but it fell off. For some reason the fish came back and hit it again and CJ got him on again and it was huge! It jumped out of the water and made a couple of good runs on him before we got him in the net, another twenty one incher! We fished a little longer until we had enough which dad says was when we had spent enough. The kids would have kept fishing until they closed it was so much fun.
We went up to the Fish Hatchery house to pay and got to meet a guy named ‘Ribeye’! He was there to help out and was just happy to be there. He bagged our fish up for us and told us that these were the biggest fish of the day. We came back to the cottage and all the parents were in awe of our catch. Dad was the super guide and we were the super stars. We of course did not tell them how easy it was. After cleaning the fish we had them for supper and they tasted really good, I can’t wait to go back up again.
