Spider Lake, Sawyer County

[msriver2013]

Hey everyone, heading up to Spider lake for a family gathering in couple weeks. Going to be fishing Spider lake a few days too. Never been fishing in WI lakes in my life either. Live in iowa and only get to fish the Mississippi and that's a challenge of its own. Was hoping someone could give me a few pointers on what's working for them right now for whatever species. All I hear about is the muskie fishing on the lake and I am not interested in that really at all. Want to be able to bring a few home to eat at night. Looking for crappie and walleye info on the lake. Anything I can learn about the lake I'm sure will help. Thanks guys.....

[Trav]

Having fished Spider a few times myself, walleyes and crappies are probably two of the more difficult species on Spider. It's gin clear making walleyes best pursued in darker conditions starting deeper and working shallower into the evening. Though I have never caught one myself there so take that with a grain of salt, but they do exist. Crappies, I haven't caught one there either, but have never pursued them, so can't give much for tips. We have had lots of success for largemouth, muskies, and bluegills. If you're ok eating bass, and I think they're tasty myself, you shouldn't have a problem finding some of them to take home. Weed lines and cranks or jigs would suffice, many places you can sight fish with a wacky worm rig quite successfully.

[msriver2013]

That bad huh?? I went to a very clear lake in northern MN one time and couldn't find fish for the life of me. I actually won't go back to the lake for that reason. I was told its really clear and that part kind of worried me just from that past experience. Going to a new place is fun but also can just be a pain...hate going out and not being able to put fish in the boat, all i want to do is have fun. Thanks for the heads up though, appriciate it. I have a cheap portable depth finder but you can't trust the thing to mark fish! Only the depth....haha. Seriously considering bringing my vex and hanging it over the boat to find deep suspended crappie....kinda weird but at least I'll know if there are fish down there or not. Everything is probably going to be deep with this hot weather and that clear water.

[rudedog]

I haven't been there in a few yrs, but every time I was there, the larger lake in the chain was not gin clear at all. I'd say it was tannic brown stain with 4-5 ft clarity.
-Jon

[Trav]

The clarity is variable, depends on the lake, time of year and turbidity, but I'd say with readings ranging from 10 up to 19 feet on the secchi, it's pretty clear. https://prodoasjava.dnr.wi.gov/swims...ationNo=583064

msriver, I wouldn't call Spider "bad" by any means, I've normally just fished it for muskies and bass. It isn't known for it's walleyes, and we've never fished for crappies. So your mileage may vary, and you could have some success fishing the deeper structure. Find the humps in big Spider (one near the channel mouth coming from little Spider, another south of the point near the strip of islands in the middle of the lake) or the steep drops on the south end of Little Spider. You might have more success there for crappies and walleyes. It's a cool chain, I don't want to discourage you, but the species you are interested in aren't typically talked about for these lakes, and my own experience doesn't include targeting them, but they are definitely there.