Not looking for your secret hidey holes but I'm new to the area and sold my boat before the move.  Just looking for some good shore access so the wife and I can tangle some lines this coming season.

We're down for anything from panfish to musky.

I have no idea, as I live in LaCrosse area, but I can say that kayak fishing is good fun.  There are some great lakes around you for kayak/canoe fishing.  If I'm fishing on foot, it is for trout.

You should be able to google map any of the names you see here and find these yourself pretty easily.  There ain't no secret places.  Most are better with a canoe/kayak/ice but these all have shore fishing.

Hatfield area:






Right downtown below the dam.



Out east of town:

If you screw around on google maps east of town you will find lots of flowages and cranberry marshes.  Some are great, some have just bullheads it seems.  One year when I was a kid they opened the dikes up or some shit to do with ducks and practically drained a couple of them and the banks were littered with northern and bass that froze out over the winter.  I can't remember which one, only that it never seemed to recover (or was never restocked).

None of these are "great" areas for shore fishing.  Or, rather they're not always good.  They get over fished and people move on and things come back and cycle back and forth.  I haven't done much shore fishing since high school but spent a lot of time in all of these areas and more.  Now wife and I generally just take the canoe out, since you access to a lot more water for not much work.

Might have to look into grabbing another canoe.  I've heard good things about the fishing in this area so I was hoping it was littered with shore access but I was finding much on google maps.  Thanks for the info, seems like a canoe or kayak would be ideal up here but a gas boat might be a little overkill for most areas(or unusable entirely).

Oh it's useful on the river and arbutus. I haven't taken mine out in 5 years but for a while we would nail crappie every spring then troll the east fork for walleye on the way to hit the smallie spawns.

But a motorboat is just work to me anymore.  I should sell it.

@Kuraki

The pictures didn't load the first time I checked this thread.  Thanks for all the tips on locations.  We don't really want to screw around with a motor boat at the moment.  Might look at getting something small with a small motor to putter around a few of the lakes in the area with but I think this summer we will just be hitting the shoreline up.

We just bought about 80 acres of land and are in the process of saving for a construction loan so we aren't looking to make any purchases anytime soon.

That's cool.  It's funny, I spent my highschool years wishing I had a boat as I shore fished all those areas, and now I'd just as soon sell my boat as I think it's just fucking work to actually use it  I'd rather just throw the canoe up and go.

That area below the Arbutus dam is probably where I've spent the most time.  You can catch musky, walleye, and smallies out of there.