Eagle Lake's Smallmouth Bass fishing has been a well-kept secret for many years because we are a multi species water system and the Smallmouth Bass are often overlooked.

Birch Dale Lodge is located in a northern bay that gets a lot of sunlight and warms up quicker in the early season. It has a sandy shoreline that the bass come to spawn on every year in early to mid June. The bay is teaming with Smallmouth for about 2 weeks and offers some of the best bass fishing you can imagine. It's a great time to introduce friends or kids to fishing. We have had kids catching 5 and 6 lb. Smallies right off of our docks in the evenings during this time of year. Talk about a bunch of excited kids!

After the spawn the smallies transition to the rocky shorelines and weedy bays all around our area of the lake.

Mid summer you can catch numbers of bass on sunken humps and deeper shorelines either trolling little crank baits or casting them into the boulders. Truly Eagle Lake is a trophy bass fishery with fish averaging 4 to 5 pounds easily.

In the late summer and especially fall the Smallmouth Bass fishing becomes a world class fishery, producing days with 20 to 30 fish between 4 and 7 pounds. We now have many customers who join us just for the trophy bass fishing. There is nothing like catching a water launching football sized smallie on light tackle.

A small 1.5-pound Smallmouth Bass filleted and deep-fried in Tempura Batter just might be the best fish you have ever tasted. Many prefer Smallmouth Bass to Walleye.

It's absolutely worth spending some time Smallmouth Bass fishing during your vacation at Birch Dale Lodge!