North Shore; Lake Superior Monster

Okay, let’s talk about Lake Superior monster laker spots for a second. For the last 20 plus years or so more and more folks have been made aware of Stannard Rock. What used to be the playground for a few dedicated die hards has now been opened up a bit. further, due to Grant’s and James’ success, there’s probably going to be a lot more attention placed on MN’s North Shore. The next place that may come up, for those with sack, is Superior Shoals. It’s about a 3 – 4 hour run straight north out of Copper Harbor, MI and in Canadian waters. Structure could be considered comparable to Stannard Rock. However, it’s not for the faint at heart by any means. If weather comes up, especially if it does so in a hurry, a guy will certainly be living life, or not, in SOoL reality. I know a couple of guys that have gone out there on and off in good weather and they say the pucker factor is exponential even in comparison to the Rock. A phrase from “Jaws” comes to mind…”we’re going to need a bigger boat.” Maybe if I ever get another true Great Lakes boat, until then it’s only a dream for this guy. Anybody else have any laker spot desires?

James,

What lake chip are you using up there and how accurate or precise is it? I assume you have a Bird, but I was wondering which chip gives you Lake Superior with good accuracy farther up the shore.

I use MN LAkemaster and the detail is amazing. Almost too many contour lines at times.

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James,

What lake chip are you using up there and how accurate or precise is it? I assume you have a Bird, but I was wondering which chip gives you Lake Superior with good accuracy farther up the shore.

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I use the Navionics chip and it… stinks. Horrible. I know the Lakemaster chip is FANTASTIC further south near Duluth as Grant mentioned but as you get further north the one I have which is 2 years old stinks as well.

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The next place that may come up, for those with sack, is Superior Shoals. It’s about a 3 – 4 hour run straight north out of Copper Harbor, MI and in Canadian waters.

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Grant and I talk of making that trip each and every time we fish together. But we won’t be doing it in a Skeeter as much as I love my 2025. Doing so would be a death wish for sure or simply relying on dumb luck. But both Grant and I have that destination on our bucket list. I wouldn’t imagine that more than a small handful of boats fish that huge structure each year.

Thanks for the info James. That’s what I suspected. There seems to be great detail up to Two Harbors and after that, it appears that the map just guesses. Doesn’t show any reefs or anything. I’m trying to download a Garmin map of Superior right now. I’ll let you know how it looks I get it working.

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Thanks for the info James. That’s what I suspected. There seems to be great detail up to Two Harbors and after that, it appears that the map just guesses. Doesn’t show any reefs or anything. I’m trying to download a Garmin map of Superior right now. I’ll let you know how it looks I get it working.

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For what its worth, I plan to give this a try once it becomes available as I know no company is going to do the survey work on Superior any time soon. Not that I plan to map all of Lake Superior or anything. But in the areas I fish repeatedly it will come in handy and over time I should be able to build up a very accurate map of some of my favorite areas.

http://www.lakemap.com/AutoChart/#.UhA6x1O5c7B

What’s amazing to me is that there is such little change happening on that lake and even Coast Guard navigation information can be tacky. I don’t have much experience with the gps chips of different makers and such, but maybe they are simply copying data from another source and applying it to their chips. The lake is huge and I’d be mapping it seriously would be a very spend, lengthy project.

That’s some cool stuff. I think I heard that Navionics is doing something similar.

If I remember correctly at the Sports Show this year, Garmin had a HD contour map of all of Superior in one of their costal editions. I am seriously considering Garmin for my next purchase. I know a lot of people has stayed away from them because they don’t have a lot of products for the Midwest, but they I’ve heard they are making a big push to get into the market. Sounds like they will have imaging units out next February.

And by the way, the maps I just downloaded for my Garmin handheld are exactly the same as my Lakemaster 2010 with the addition of the lakes in all of the Midwest, including LOTW, RL and RR. At least now I don’t have to worry about swapping and losing chips.

Anyone looking to buy a Lakemaster chip for Garmin???

James, I think you answered my question. It doesn’t even sound like you have a reliable map of the upper shore yourself. That give me a little more confidence in what I plan on doing next week.

Here’s a product I found from Garmin for just Lake Superior.

Garmin Lake Superior

James and Grant, Awesome stuff. The caliber of fish you guys routinely catch out of superior is awesome. Not trying to build any egos, but I do now see alot of other reports coming on many other sites of fish turning up of this size. Grant the whole state record thing : your a state record holder in my book buddy: Keep on catching fellas – QB

CPR a possible state record…… .