Isle Royale 9/15-9/17

Got up at 2:30 Sunday morning so we could get out to the island and get a good day of fishing in before dinner. Was able to get unpacked at our shelter by about 11 am and had lines in the water by 11:30. First lake trout hit the net by 11:35. We trolled that spot for about 2 hours and picked up nearly 20 3-8 lb lakers in that time. One went about 32” but decided to leave the hot action to find bigger fish I knew were around somewhere. By about 3 pm we arrived at our second spot and had the firs fish on board before we had 4 lines in the water. 5 minutes we landed our first pig at 38”. We blacked out the chart plotter on that spot for the next 4 hours and managed a 37” and a 34” and ended the day with 51 lake trout even after starting around noon. This was easily my best day fishing lakers ever.

Here are some pics from day 1.

Day 2 started off with some fog and was worried that we might not be heading out too far in the pea soup. On the bright side it meant there wouldn’t be much wind. We got out to the lake and found a good 100-200’ of visibility so we cruised out to our spots from the day before. Day 2 was interesting because we applied the same exact baits and tactics as the day before but we were having a ton of trouble keeping fish hooked up. We lost 50-75% of the fish we hooked up including some pigs. We used spoons exclusively with siwash hooks and lost probably less than 5 fish the day before. We switched to treble hooks and our success rate went back up to what it was the day before although we never managed to put any pigs in the boat. Fishing was definitely slower but we still managed 31 fish with 3 of them being some really nice steelhead.

Pics from day 2.

Woke up to day 3 to howling winds and we were afraid our plans to fish were going to be limited. We turned the corner to access the big lake and to our surprise the wind on the lake was actually less than it was on land. We found 2-3’ waves and diminishing wind. Not the best conditions to fish in my boat but I’ve done worse. Headed back to our regular haunts and had similar success as the day before. Got a couple lake trout in the low 30” range and one nice steelhead. We ended the day a couple hour early with 28 fish. Decided to head out that night rather than the next morning because of moderate SW winds predicted overnight and in the morning.

Our best color was orange with a silver back. One spoon might have cause 1/2 of all of our fish. This isn’t particularly uncommon for me out there. About 95% of our fish came on downriggers with a few on dipsys. The steelhead came off spoons with 4 colors of suffix advanced leadcore. Most lake trout were graphed in the 60-80’ range and we target our baits mostly in that range. Good luck to anyone heading out there this fall.

Thanks for the report, BG. 51 Lakers in a day is staying busy! I’m hoping to make a trip up there in the next couple weeks.

Regarding those siwash hooks, I like them for salmon but have settled on trebles for Lakers. Don’t know why but my hooking percentage is consistently poor with the siwash so I’ve been making a habit of replacing them.

If I get up there I’ll be sure to share a report back.

No problem. Good luck when you go. I know you’ll make it.

One other thing I didn’t mention is that bigger seemed to be better. That spoon in the pic above is bigger than a mag. I just wish we had an orange one on that size.

biggill wrote:

I just wish we had an orange one on that size.

Tape G. We always have tape in various colors on board the boat just on the off chance we need to do some color doctoring.

Sounds like a great trip with plenty of action.

Good idea Tom. I was actually thinking that when I was up there. I carry some white glow tape that I’ve used before but I guess I’ll have to buy some other colors now.

I’ve got some spoons that have the enamel coming off so they would be a good candidate for adding colors to.

Nice report Biggill…

Sounds like a heck of a trip.

I remember hearing of guys painting spoons right on the back of the boat but don’t think that is very common anymore. Tape sounds like a good solution but a selection of sharpie markers could help also.

Great report biggill. 110+ fish is a heck of a 3 day run!

I feel like this would be better served in the reports.

I’m a huge fan of reports of years past in this site and is a boon of info. But when I do my Google searching it rarely comes up with posts from any type of forums. I assume most people search for “reports” which wouldn’t come up with this ever.

Great report ya put together here and just thinking down the road where there may be a younger biggill who is looking for info he would want to find this.

2 cents. Looks like heck of a trip.

Wicked cool!

Deuces wrote:

I assume most people search for “reports” which wouldn’t come up with this ever.

Well, now they will.

Yeah, as long as someone says “report” somewhere in the thread the Googles will pick it up. See attached, several of BG’s reports using the same title format, all filed in the same sub-forum, appear fairly high in the search results for “isle royale fishing report.”

Also — I was under the impression that the “reports” section was limited to IDO pro staff dudes.

Attachments:

1. 

   Screen-Shot-2019-09-23-at-10.54.56-AM.png
   

tangler wrote:

Also — I was under the impression that the “reports” section was limited to IDO pro staff dudes.

I haven’t been elevated to IDO Pro Staff. I’m too much of a prick.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tangler wrote:</div>
Also — I was under the impression that the “reports” section was limited to IDO pro staff dudes.

I haven’t been elevated to IDO Pro Staff. I’m too much of a prick.

But we still like good fisherman pricks

Plenty of reports of years past who weren’t prostaff. If ya got good report it’s all welcome from what I have read up to now.

To say this is “impressive” would be an absolute understatement.

Almost incredible might be a better descriptive.

I’m sure just about any TV fishing show would dream of getting that many big trout in an episode.

Interesting too you made mention of the hook change.

A couple questions, did you camp out on the island all 3 days? And is that your dad that was fishing with you?

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

I’m sure just about any TV fishing show would dream of getting that many big trout in an episode.

Well, I know James has got it pretty well dialed in.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

Interesting too you made mention of the hook change.

When you hook bottom and then it starts shaking it’s head, you start looking for a root cause pretty quickly.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

A couple questions, did you camp out on the island all 3 days? And is that your dad that was fishing with you?

Yes we camped on the island. There are camp sites sprinkled around the island but only a few (5) within 40 miles of Grand Portage. It really sucks when those are taken and you have to go another 25-35 miles to another campsite. Unless you intend to fish that area.

Not my dad, that’s my good friend Mitch. My dad passed 18 years ago. Mitch got his personal best 37” and 38” on this trip.

A good time for a shameless plug if anyone cares. I used the 25” x 25” (extendable to 12’) Ranger Tournament Series net on this trip. I can honestly say this is my favorite net I have ever owned. If I had to bet a laker that was 4” longer I may be wishing I had a bigger net but overall this net was awesome. I had no problem hoisting the 38” with the net held nearly horizontally at the end of the thick handle (not the extension).

Deuces wrote:

Plenty of reports of years past who weren’t prostaff. If ya got good report it’s all welcome from what I have read up to now.

You and I must be seeing different things. When I go to the “reports” sections I can view oodles of old reports but there’s no button inviting me to post a new one. The last couple years the report section has basically been Will Roseberg with some good stuff (Pontoon Chronicles!) and Paul Delaney promoting his guide biz. I haven’t seen a report posted in the reports section by someone with “participant” under their name since I’ve been here. Am I missing something?

Interesting, I swear at one time a guy could post one. Perhaps I was wrong?