fishing the lake on a little budget

ok guys I am thinking about maybe trying to do some fishing out of duluth/ two harbors area, and I am just looking for some help as to what equiptment I might need. the main thing I would be doing is trying to get braging rights that I had my boat out there and to catch a fish would be even better

any help would be nice, thanks

You can get into a a downrigger for a couple hundred if you go with one that bolts on, under a hundred for one that clamps down temporarily. Either way, getting down deep is a primary need at times and 150 feet should maybe be a threshold for max. depth.

If you are going to do this sort of fishing more than once a year, get a couple decent trolling/downrigger rods set-ups from Cabelas. Your downrigger will have a depth counter so the reels don’t need to have one.

I fill my reels with 12 or 17 pound vanish.

Use a 10/12 pound ball and get quality releases, one for the ball and one stacker. I like the fish shaped weight. I think you see less drag with them.

For tackle stop in Duluth down on London Road and go to Marine General on your way up to Two Harbors. These guys are pros and will get the best deal to you price-wise off the un-packaged tackle wall. Its all name-brand, just not packaged to save you $$$$. The terminal tackle like swivels [BALL BEARING] can be gotten here too. The guys here can tell you what the best colors are at the current time, and yes the preference to color will change. Any lure with gold/orange stripe is going to get you lake trout.

Marine carries the lake maps too. Get one. Even though the lake is huge, points of reference save lots of time snooping on wide open water. If you have one, use your gps….it will make your trolling speed easy to monitor [lakers under 2 mph, salmon up to 3.0 mph are my best speeds].

Getting set up cost a few bucks, but the rewards are huge. The biggest investment is the time put into learning. You can streamline that cost by taking someone out in your boat that has experience with this sort of fishing and who can show you first hand what to do and use and how the rigging looks when set up properly.

I just returned from Kewaunee (Lake Michigan) in my first Salmon fishing trio ever. Well it was a great trip, all 5 of us filled out and we even caught some big bruisers (17.5 and 18.5 lbs were the big ones) and very few were under 10 lbs. I’d post some pictures if I knew how (I may have figured it out) The word around the harbor was that I was fishing with two of the best guys out there so that was a plus. I’d like to learn how to do this on Superior as it is a bit closer for me although I hear that the Salmon aren’t as big or as plentiful. I guess I wouldn’t know where to start on Superior, but the input from CT is helpful so far.

Here is another photo of teh 17.5 pounder. The first one was the 18.5.

Cohos are pretty common at times out of Two Harbors, but kings are scarce now. Early spring and fall fishing can show some looper action, but those are best approached under a float with crawlers or waxies on a looper bug. Spawn sacks would work as well if the were fished near a river mouth.

Superior is exactly that when it comes to lakers though. There is a line of humps that come up to about 55 feet not far out of the ore harbor at Two Harbors. I have taken some very impressive lakers jigging off the tops of those humps when fish are seen atop of them on a locator. Trolling around the tops and along the drop-offs at each hump can be nutso fishing too. I have had lakers nail the baits being trolled around those humps when nothing was even seen on the locator, so one has to assume that between an ultra-well established lateral line [vibration detection] and stupendous eyesight these fish can come in to hit from quite a distance from under the boat where seeing them on the screen is possible.

I enjoy the hard runs that the salmons make and the frequent aerial stunt-work too, but nothing is more demanding than the dogged fight of a large laker. A 15 pound fish is like battling a submarine.

Ironically, the best trout I have put on shore have come from shore or the breakwater at Two Harbors. I have had them tow me up one side of that structure and then down the other….often several times. The trolling is super though. I highly recommend either approach.

You can also just use planner boards with spending too much!! Thats how I started fishing the big pond, I just used those clip on planner boards with stick baits and caught fish around Two Harbors when water temps get into 40’s it can be good around there!! And I agree with above statements too, depends on how much you want to spend and do with boat??

Mike, one tip I wanted to add is you may want to put an ad in the Duluth News Tribune. That is how I got started up there. I was banking on there being guys with dusty equipment wanting to unload cheap. It worked. I got about a half dozen calls and they all were good deals. I ended up getting two down riggers, balls, and releases for $50.

Sully

thanks guys for all the great replys, I guess my only other question is does anyone want to take me out to show me the ropes?

thanks again, Mike

I have a low cost substitute for you for riggers. They call it “pouner” fishing. It is essentially a three way rig that many use to troll deep for walleyes, except you use one pound ball sinkers. “This is how I roll” I have three inexpensive line counter reels, I spooled them with 30lb power pro and troll three ways with the 1 lb balls using 5-6′ mono leader to the trolling spoon. usually, 300′ of line will get me near the bottom in 150′ of water at 2.5 mph. several limits of lakers fell to this method last fall.

The paper is a good idea and the pounders are as well.

Another thought is to get on-line and look at the Duluth Trib’s garage sale area. I have gotten some huge goodies by doing those sales.