Fishing from shore on the North Shore

Heading to the North Shore next week. Any advice on where to fish from shore and what types of bait/lures to use? Assuming river mouths are best?

That “north shore” covers a lot of shoreline about 200 miles of it. Where are you planning or wanting to fish?

Going north from Duluth on the scenic route, you start seeing signs on the left for Tom’ Logging camp after eight or so miles. Start looking on the right at that point for Stony Point Trail or road. Take the Stony Point turn to the right. The first 1/8 mile will have some houses on the left and as the road turns left on a long curve, start looking for the large rocks at the point. You’ll find places where people pull out and park with paths to the rocks. This can be a good fishing area this time of the year if there’s some low level wave action coming into the rocks but you have to cast and crank here….no going deep with the lures. The water isn’t super deep but any wave action brings bait into the rocks and Lakers will follow the food. Low light periods are great here…early morning or later afternoon. Right now the Trout will be primary fish but kings can be found there at times [like now] as they begin to stage around rivers. Later on Cohos will frequent this location as will Steelhead. The fish will be chasers here so it won’t take long to know if anything is there to hit.

Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Grand Marias all have breakwaters that you can walk out on to cast. All of these places tend to be somewhat seasonal. In August the Grand Marias and Silver Bay breakwaters will likely be your best bet for seeing coho action along with lake trout. Both are rock breakwaters and can be difficult to move on if you have walking or balance issues. Silver Bay’s jetti is the hardest to get around on, so if kids are in the plan, maybe do the Grand Marias or Two Harbors locations as they are friendlier.

I was just at the Two Harbors breakwater for a few days and Lake Trout are a common catch right now along with Herring. I came home with a limit of trout to 8 pounds, all by casting from the breakwater. I started my fishing on both side just after walking out past the dogleg and fishing to the end of the structure. One fish came from the midway point walking out on the lake side. The second fish came from the end on the lake side and the third cam about 100 feet from the dogleg on the harbor side. All came from near the bottom. Casting as far as possible and allowing the lure to hit bottom leaving the bail open on the fall got all the fish. A slightly slow to medium retrieve speed.

Right now in Two Harbors gold/orange is the working color combo. Go find a couple gold 1/4 or 3/8 Kastmasters and pick up some bright orange lure tape and tape one 1/2 of one side, top to bottom, of the lures. Find a couple # 4 plain gold Mepps spinners. If they have the orange lure tubing on the trebles, leave them alone, they’re good to go. If no tubing is on the hooks, pick up some fluorescent orange fingernail polish and paint the hook-half of the lure body with the polish. Be sure to use BALL-BEARING swivels on the line’s end with every lure you cast and don’t buy cheap BB swivels or you’ll not be a happy camper.

Use the longest, light action rod you have that will handle the lure weights and re-spool a reel with a large line capacity and good drag with a very good mono in six pound test: I use Trilene XL 6 pound in the green and when the line hits that lake water you can not see it. I’ve tried a couple of fluorocarbons and they sink beautifully with the lures making getting them down a quick treat but all have had issues with abrasion on the concrete breakwater edges or the rock structures while retrieving or playing out fish. Avoid any of the lines saying they’re tough as they will not play nice for this casting.

Be certain to take a net with at least a four foot handle. I use a Frabil with an extendable handle. Take a rope stringer if keeping fish.

One the lake side of the Two Harbors breakwater the water depth will start at about 35 feet after the dogleg and will fall into 70 footish water quickly as you work to the end. Directly off the end of the wall you’ll find water almost 80 on the end of a good cast. Both corners of the end have some interesting rock structure that fish seem to like a lot. On the harbor side from the end to the dogleg you will find water depths from about 65 feet to around 35 feet again. Cast as far as you can chuck it, let it drop on an open bail. When the line goes slack, hand close the bail and give a good rip to jump the lure off the bottom, taking up the slack quickly then just a nice steady retrieve with a couple good jerks every once in a while to dance the lure. Hits can be immediate after starting the retrieve, come on the drop or anywhere in the retrieve, but those that come right at the wall when you’re thinking of lifting the lure to re-cast can blow you’re mind.

If you get a couple Herring, they are absolutely sinful eating by filleting like a walleye and pan frying. If you’re staying at a resort, see if the kitchen will cook your fish. If so let them prepare them for you since they have the recipes and equipment. Herring will freeze ok but you need to eat the fillets inside of a couple weeks to be the best eating. Lake Trout in the three to 6 pound range are darned good eating. I do my trout on the grill so I leave the skin on the fillets.

Most of all, just take in the beauty of the lake. Just the experience of fishing there on such a vast and wild piece of water is inspiring. Good luck and I hope this helps you!

Great write up Tom.

Something just came to mind that I learned when I went to stannard rock. My best lure there was a 3/4 to 1 oz white tube jig. You literally do the exact same cast and retrieve that Tom mentioned above. Slow roll back to the wall. Maybe a lift or two during the retrieve.

I know for sure this will be in my arsenal next time I see some fish that are worth jigging for.

Good luck.

I’m packing tubes and inserts for our September trip and will fish them just as biggill has offered.

Here’s the only one I brought to Stannard Rock. Wasn’t much left of it.

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Here’s a 4″ tube I make. I make this 1/2 ounce insert for my tubes too using #2/0 Gammi trebles. Real trouble maker for lakers.

I generally carry three colors of tubes: white pearl, white/chartreuse tail and chartreuse/orange tail. One of the combinations is usually working if the fish want tubes.

If there’s ever a thread titled “where did they hide the bodies?” I’m going to assume there will be a detailed report with helpful information from Tom. Tom I think everyone is grateful for all the tips and pointing in the right direction over the years.

I forgot about your tubes Tom. Those should work very well cast from the breakwall. It would be interesting to see if they work as well vertical jigging. If they can entice a bite, I’m sure it’ll be a good hookup percentage. There is a huge advantage with that treble placed where it is versus a standard lead head tube jig. I always add a home made treble trailer to mine.

Thank you Dan. That’s nice to hear. I appreciate it. I will, however, leave the bodies to others.

A friend and I take his boat out to the 52 foot hump off the Two Harbors breakwater. I know you know where I am referring to. We jig these tubes and inserts when we see a trout hanging uptop of the hump and do very well vertical jigging. The line forward eye allows these tubes to swim, but not necessarily in a circular fashion like the typical leadhead tube jig. Rather, they dart all over the place like a frenzied minnow. We’ve watched trout follow these up to within 15 feet of the boat before and saw the hits looking down at what the jig was doing. Nothing on earth is more impressive than seeing a 15 pound dark shape come barreling straight up out of deep water and open that white gaping hole and inhale the jig. Damn, they turn on a dime and head right straight back down and like to take you right with them. All of our trout gear has ceramic drag washers just because of this.

Casting this rig later in September can be a riot when the masses of trout start congregating along Two Harbors. Some really big fish get caught around that time as a rule but then every year is different for when the good fishing really takes off and some years its not until AFTER the season has closed for trout. I don’t see that this year given the cooler than normal summer temps of August in spite of the heat wave the shore saw earlier. Any year I have done well in mid -August on the wall, or boat for that matter, has usually shown a great September that just kept getting better all thru the month. Our little jaunty a week ago brought three nice eaters home and I had one big something break off without being seen, but it hit really deep….not far off the bottom in about 70 feet of water….and ran for maybe 80 yards before it just stopped. I could get a tiny bit of line back and then off it went again. The second run did me. It was a very heavy fish. On a 1/4 ounce gold Kastmaster with an orange stripe on one side.

I know I mentioned the Kastmasters and spinners before but I’ll just say here that any store bought lure I use gets a hook change to Gammi trebles and usually one size larger. I make my own spinners and use a size 4 Gammi treble on the 1/3 ounce version with a size 5 gold blade. The size 1/4 ounce size with a #4 blade gets a #6 gammi treble. Gammis just work good for me and I’ve learned to trust in them. Mustad makes a good wide gap treble too if I can’t find the gammis when I’m ready to re-hook some lures. Really prefer the gammi wide gaps thou.

The tube inserts you see in the picture are actually 1/3 ounce but by the time beads and the hook get added the whole insert is slightly heavier than 1/2 ounce. The 1/3 ounce spinners I make are well over 1/2 ounce but I just refer to body size as the weight. No idea why ..habit I guess.

Excellent info Tom. I knew when I saw the heading on the post that you would start CFB in the right direction.

You just made me want to plan a weekend up there in Sept!

Tom what an excellent post. You have given me much to think about, maybe i’ll stop going over the ridge so often to chase little brook trout and play with the big girls.

Wow! Thank you so much!

Just came to say that I’ll be in Lutsen/Grand Marais this weekend and plan to use some of this advice. I’d searched older threads and Tom is a wealth of information, especially on tackle and techniques along that Two Harbors break wall. Now to change out trebles for siwash hooks for fishing near river mouths…Thanks!

Not all that many years ago the rivers were a great place to target in the spring and again in the fall, but things change. The DNR stopped stocking Kamloops Rainbows, and King Salmon. The Loppers provided some super spring river fishing to suppliment the Steelhead runs and offer a fish that anglers could keep. The fall fishing had some runs of Kings that were outstanding and also brought Cohos in to spawn. As a bonus for fall anglers the loopers started to show up with the Kings to dine on their spawn and many got caught then as well.

I always used the same tackle on the rivers as I do yet on the breakwaters but I had to swap out trebles for Siwash single hooks. The Siwash hooks are tough and offer a super long barb end that won’t turn out on a slack line if a fish turns and comes at you head on. I had two bait boxes, one with each style of hook so I didn’t have to mess with doing the switch.

There is a minor run of Pink Salmon in the Splitrock River mouth in the fall but it may be well into it right now. It doesn’t last long and the fish really don’t have any table quality but if you wanted to catch a gnarly looking buck fish the Pinks were the way to go. Pink or orange yarn ball flies did the trick as a rule.

What always captivated me about Lake Superior and these shore spots was looking out over the lake and realizing its enormity, then actually catching a fish from all that water, considering that most of the water within a cast can easily be deeper than any lake you might fish around home. Lake Superior and its unreal history are simply amazing.