Mark’s comments are mirrors of what we find on Gitchie around Two Harbors. His thoughts on the current speed are also something that comes into play at times depending on the species you’re targeting.
I know from past experiences just standing on the breakwater casting that wind direction can play a huge part in pushing warmer surface water in favorable ways. During the heat of summer, a SE wind for two consecutive days will have salmon within casting distance of the breakwater but lake trout can still be caught from the deep water right under where the salmon hit. This makes me think that surface temperature is a very relative term. Wind can shallow up the depth of surface temps. Currents and slicks can mess with surface temp penetration and the sheer volume of ice water [43-44 degree, year round] in that lake will most definitely create a thermal barrier that limits warm water temps’ depth penetration.
The original poster mentioned slicks. These are, in part, something that occurs due to currents, wind and water temps. Part of a slick is the merging of two masses of water at different enough temperatures to create a definite line between them. A slick’s boundaries are very obvious. Slick’s created during fall weather are perhaps one of the best places to fish. We troll fall slicks using a simple stick-bait approach on a long line….200 feet out, 10 pound mono….with a one-half ounce in-line sinker 8 feet ahead of the swivel. We choose baits by color with deep orange and red/orange crawfish shallow divers being great for loopers while the same in a green back silver belly or blue back silver belly are right on the heels of the orange patterns. We’ve never had to fish more than 10 feet deep to get fish from a slick which I think tends to support the idea this surface temp idea.
I spend a lot of time on the breakwater casting and that allows me to really take a serious look at what the water is doing, especially when I am getting hits and/or fish. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is under-tow. I’ve seen a moderate chop on the lake coming from the S-SE which puts it coming straight into the end of the breakwater. At the same time I’ve seen loose schools of herring fighting to swim in the same direction while only 15-20 feet down in the water column. The water being pushed into the bays and shorelines has to be displaced somewhere and like in the oceans it goes down and out creating the under-tow. Where I cast will depend a lot on whether the under lying current is very strong or laid back. Watching the mud lines created by ore boats’ maneuvering in the harbor vent into the lake supports this very nicely.
I think that being aware of how surface temps and wind and slicks and everything helps to make people better anglers, its still totally surface observations. Locators with down and side imaging will certain help to show fish position and help create an approach to catching them, but without sophisticated technology to tell what’s really happening very soon after leaving the realm of the surface, its hard to say what’s really going on and we are left to speculation. Sometimes it works, sometimes we draw the goose-egg. There are times when I do much better standing on the cement and casting that the boats do and I think its because I have such a limited area to fish. It forces me to figure out what is happening right there and not having to look at the lake as a whole. Understanding in detail what takes place in that small area certainly has been a huge help when I am in the boat.
