I did my first trip up there this past spring. I thought by the third weekend in May I’d hit it just right. [MaxwellSmartVoice] Missed it by that much! [/MaxwellSmartVoice] A very late ice out had hard water up until a week before my arrival.
I stayed at Life of Riley’s Resort on Norwegian Bay. I planned on being mobile when I went up leaving the option to go down to big bay or anywhere I needed to. I have a good friend that owns a hanger at the Tower airport and keeps his boat up there. He goes nearly every weekend. Nice when you can fly there in an hour.
While researching I found the consensus to be the bigger fish (Walleyes) are usually found on the west end and you get more numbers on the East end. Walleyes are stocked in the east end but not on the west end and really, with the size and the way the lake is split up, they are two different fisheries.
The fishing for us on the west end was terrible at that time. One short walleye, one good northern, a VERY large Muskie follow and one nice Crappie. Now this was supposed to be the hot weekend for crappies but they’d not quite moved in. Black Bay is supposed to be THE spot on the lake for springtime crappies. Of course a few days after we left they moved in. Other fisherman were getting the same results. Only two good walleyes caught out of those staying at the same resort all weekend, just too soon.
So we took one day and met up with my friend in Tower. We used bottom bouncers on the flats of Big bay and did pretty well. Threw back a number of shorties and from 8-12 we came up 2 fish short of a 4 man limit. I think the biggest was 16” though. We had moved off the flats after a while and did pretty well working deeper breaks of of islands too. My friend, while in all the years he’d been coming up there had never ventured to the west side, concurred that the general consensus from the locals is the east end will get you numbers, the West end will get you quality. I’d even tried the same tactics the next day on the west end as we what had worked on the east end with no luck. There are certainly more boats on the water on the east end too. That end certainly gets more pressure but being managed makes up for it.
The west end is certainly more private. Norwegian Bay has very few structures on it. One side of the long narrow bay is all state land, the other side of the long bay is only lightly developed.
I’d planned on going again this fall and camping at the Hoodoo Point Campground but the weather was not looking agreeable. If I want to camp in 8” of snow I’ll go in February. The main reason I was planning for this side was to be able to quickly meet up with my friends. Hoodoo point is a nice campground with as many or as few amenities as you’d like. Right on the water you can pull your boat up on shore at most of the sites. A coworker confirmed this ad she’s been there several times.
All of that said, my next trip which will likely be this spring again, will be to the west end. Not sure if it will be Life of Riley or not as there are a few other places I’d like to try. It may depend on who will take my dog, too. I loved the seclusion of Norwegian Bay. Even in busier times they don’t get the party boats, jet skis etc like what comes out of the much more populated Tower end. I’d take fewer fish of a more quality Size over quantity and crowds. There was some amazing structure on the west end too, midlake, islands, points etc.
