Tough day in Two Harbors

Went out on Friday the 28th for the last shot at Lakers. What a great day to be on the lake, sun shining, winds started out pretty well, just right for a sweat shirt.
Problem was the fish weren’t cooperating. I tried all my favorite spots and didn’t get a single fish. I was really trying to get my partner on some fish and was totally miffed.
Finally I tried a lake troll spinner rig and a night crawler and caught one very nice looper, but it was unclipped so we took a couple pictures and let it go.
We kept going and tried some deeper water down rigging around 60 to 80 feet down in hopes for salmon, we got a few pops but nothing stayed on long enough to find out what they were. Now I was getting really aggrivated.
The wind started picking up out of the N.E. and we got our first keeper after 6 hours on the water, a nice 3 lb laker, in 100 f.o.w. near the harbor enterance, no structure just out there. O.K. something to work with. Back and forth and back and forth around what I think is a sunken ship or something. We ended up with 2 more and finally quit at 5:30 knowing the trip home was going to be a long one.
After talking to a couple of people later we found out about a pretty nasty thunder storm the night before. Things kind of fell into place about them being so spread out and in deeper water then I expected.
Chaulk one up for a learning experience.
All and all a great year over all. We limited out 5 out of 6 times and big fish was 16 lbs. Best trip was 27 lakers, 5 kings and a looper.
Can’t wait till next year.

Thanks for the report, don’t hear much about that fantastic fishery in this neck of the woods too often! Good to hear you are getting some un-clipped fish as that is a testament to natural reproduction in the lake. What are you running for a fishing rig out on the “Big Lake”? I ran a 18′ Alumacraft with a 150hp Yamaha up there a couple times, but would have gladly jumped in a boat twice as big a couple of days when the wind came up all of sudden! Keep those Superior reports coming.

My fall schedule put me at the cabin in Two Harbors for the last 12 days of the season. I was on the water every day but the last and then opted for the breakwater and casting. The fish tally for these last days was 21 lakers with a 3 salmon tossed into the mix.

The largest lakers weighed just over 12.5 pounds and the smallest was about 3. I fished the humps just out of the harbor and never found the need to move. The last day of the season was the only skunk. Every day gave up something.

Gold w/orange stripe blades did the fish nicely. Dodgers and flies/smelt put a couple larger fish in the cooler too. The spoons had to be well back of the ball for some reason. Normally a drop-back of about 10 feet is fine but these fish would not hit until the bait was behind the ball by twentyfive feet. A green /purple fly was the only color in that venue that the fish would look at. Larger dodgers worked better than smaller ones and plain silver was best. For the most part, I had the bombs dropped to 50 feet. On a couple days the fish showed at 85 or a little deeper, but only two medium sized fish came from that depth. Fish were being marked everywhere and at all depths around the humps. Even jiggers were popping fish by drifting over the hump tops and working smelt tipped jigs.

The salmon came of Yozuri’s trolled at twenty feet…..purple over silver.

I/we was in a 16 foot AlumaCraft open boat with a 25 Yamaha 4 stroke. The water got a tad bit roley-poley on a couple days, but we could always find somewhere to work where the wind wasn’t such a factor, like in or near the mouth of the harbor.

I thought the fishing was outstanding given the windy and weather a few of the days. A fish or two in four hours everyday is not bad work especially when one considers that the larger fish were more numerous than the smaller ones. The grouse hunting for me was a disappointment, but the fishing was great. Just gotta love the season closing final two weeks up there.

I run a 18.5′ center console Lund-Newport. She’s been in 5 footers and never taken a drop over the gunnel. It has much deeper sides then the newer SS’s and is built for big water.
ct: I’m pretty sure I saw you out there on the 28th, I think I said something about seeing fish on the screen but not catching much. Was that all fish on that hump or a mast and rigging from a sunken boat. I’ve never seen anything like it.

That 52 foot hump had fish all around the base of it. Most were seen at about 80 feet as you started to come up on it. We actually started to pop a bait out of the snap and let it rise up slowly as we brought the ball up and that sent a few of these fish over the edge and they hit us.

The fish were frustrating out there. You’d mark them and a few could be seen on the locator rise up and follow a bait and then bang. Others might rise a ways and drop the chase. Others still wouldn’t be teased into even a little chase. The numbers of fish seen on the locator over the 12 days I was there was unreal. Right along the breakwater wall in 70 feet was another solid area of production but the size was usually down to 6 pounds or so. Our salmon came along the wall.