The North Country's Best Kept Musky Secret

The North Country’s Best Kept Musky Secret

Best Kept Musky Secret byJohn Dettloff - IndianTrailResort.com

February 12, 1999

The North Country’s Best Kept Musky Secret: While the Chippewa Flowage has long possessed a mysterious allure that no other musky lake seems to have, legions of devoted musky fishermen throughout the years have become captivated by both the lore and romance of this still unspoiled northwoods wilderness. Created nearly 75 years ago, this sprawling body of water is no stranger to musky anglers from far and wide. To the contrary, the Chippewa Flowage has long been known as being one of the world’s finest complete musky fisheries.

Following the creation of the flowage, it took time for its original crop of muskys to discover the lake’s new flooded regions and diversity of new shallow water haunts…. to spread out and multiply…. and to grow. By the late 1930’s the Chippewa Flowage had matured and consistent trophy musky catches began to be made. The word got out and, just as post-Depression anglers were beginning to infiltrate this new musky angling paradise, World War II gave the country’s able bodied men a more dangerous quarry to “hunt”. So throughout the duration of the war, the flowage remained as but a quiet presence in musky circles – being tapped by a select few who were either disabled or too young or old to fight. But by the post-war era and the peacetime prosperity which had set in, vacationers and anglers alike soon rediscovered the flowage.

John Dettloff - IndianTrailResort.com

The – still current – world record musky was caught in the flowage at this time and with each successive year ever increasing numbers of vacationers were coming to the flowage. The flowage was no longer the secret that it was during the dark days of the Depression and the war. During the next twenty years the number of resorts continued to grow to meet the demand of this new influx of visitors and, by the 1970’s, the flowage had 40 active resorts. Fishing pressure had obviously grown along with the flowage’s long established popularity and the flowage gained a reputation as being one of the country’s most well known, productivity, and, often, busier northwoods fishing lakes.

So how can such a renowned body of water such as the Chippewa Flowage be today considered “the north country’s best kept musky secret”? Things have changed on the “Chip” during recent years. Now there are actually less resorts and the musky fishing pressure has actually decreased on the flowage. Why? Some of the resorts ended up selling off their cabins to private owners and a few were even bulldozed down because they had either fallen into disrepair or they had simply become outdated. Nature has since reclaimed their sites. With less places now available for vacation stays on the flowage, there are now fewer people and fishermen on the water.

And because Hayward offers visitors an even more diverse array of activities and attractions, Hayward now attracts more general tourists & families. And this also translates to a reduction in musky fishing pressure. The resorts are still full, but they are now being filled by a higher percentage of tourists and a lower percentage of musky fishermen. And, what’s more, because of the incredible success of our release program during the past fifteen years, in recent years more and bigger muskies have been caught than ever before on the flowage. So now we have MORE MUSKIES, BIGGER MUSKIES, AND LESS PRESSURE…. so the stage is set for some of the finest musky fishing the flowage has seen yet. So for all the musky fishermen who remain (myself included) – believe it or not – the flowage has largely recovered back into a “virgin” musky lake and, to a degree, stands as one of the “north country’s best kept musky secrets”!