Outdoors Weekly News Archive

January 18, 2008

HOT PROPERTY
Access to popular fishing spot open thanks to purchase

By Joe Knight
Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire
CEDAR FALLS, Wis. (AP) – One recent Monday morning 23 cars were parked at the access point to the Cut-off, a widening in the Red Cedar River above Lake Menomin that is a popular fishing hole.
An ice fishermen later said this was relatively light fishing pressure. The previous day there had been “five times as many” anglers out, by his estimate.
Whether all the fishermen, or any of the fishermen, are getting on the ice by a legal overland route still is not clear.
For years ice fishermen gained access to the Cut-off, for a nominal fee, at a private campground adjacent to the fishing hole. The campground has been sold and the land subdivided, leaving anglers without an overland route. Some fishermen have reportedly been fined for trespassing for crossing the private lots to get to the river. (The Dunn County Sheriff’s Department did not return a call on this issue.)
In September the Menomonie-based West Wisconsin Land Trust purchased a hundred acres adjacent to the former campground, which should ensure public access for the future.
For now, however, it still is not clear where the legal public access begins.
When we arrived at the end of the road to the Cut-off in the late morning we found a sign nailed to a tree identifying the land as a nature preserve owned by West Wisconsin Land Trust.
A well-defined path in the snow led from the road end to the ice. Whether all of the path or any of the path was on the land trust’s land or on the adjacent private land again was not clear. It was at least close to the Land Trust property.
My fishing companion, Ed Solin of rural Chippewa County, has fished the Cut-off in winter and open water seasons for about 25 years, but he wasn’t sure of the status of Cut-off this year. He first suggested we fish Butch’s Bay, another prime early-ice spot on the Lake Menomin system. He has had success there on a couple of earlier trips and knew we could fish there without getting arrested.
But I told him I needed to do some investigative fishing for a story, so he agreed to have a look. He was pleased at what we found. He could get winter access to his old fishing hole.
Getting winter access to the Cut-off has been more difficult in recent years, even before the former campground was sold. For years the owner allowed access through a self-registered fee of a dollar or two. But a few winters ago she closed access to all but those who were willing to pay $100 for a key to unlock a gate that allowed access. Then you either had to pony up $100 or know somebody who had a key who was willing to bring you along.
Solin still managed to get on a few times. He knew some of those influential anglers with keys.
I went elsewhere to do my ice fishing.
As we hiked down a path to the ice, hauling a sled with our stuff, we met a couple of anglers from Durand coming off the ice, hauling a sled with their stuff. They said the fishing was slow, but I couldn’t help noticing they had several bluegills in a bucket.
We dragged the sled across the ice until Solin came to a spot he liked. There were a few anglers nearby, but the anglers were spread around the ice.
He drilled two holes, we set up his portable tent, and we began fishing. We dropped lines into 12 feet of water.
The Cut-off is really a gravel pit created in the 1950s to supply materials for the Interstate, Solin said. In the 1960s the dam in Menomonie was repaired, and the water level on Lake Menomin rose, further deepening the Cut-off.
Ever since then panfish have thrived in this artificial backwater.
Because of my schedule, we only had 2-1/2 hours to fish, from noon to 2:30 p.m. The middle of the day is not the prime time to fish, ordinarily, but sometimes at this time of year they bite on an off all day, he said.
That proved to be the case. We each had a Lake Menomin limit of 10 bluegills when we left, and we both had released a lot of smaller fish, including crappies and pumpkinseeds.
It’s great that access has been preserved for the public. It would also be great if the land trust would do a better job of defining the legal access point.