Got back pretty late last night concluding my second trip this year to the Isle. I’ll admit, every time I leave that lake I feel like I’ve learned a lot but makes me feel I know so little about that body of water. Anyone who gets bored doing the same old bass, walleye or musky fishing needs to get up to Lake Superior and give a try. It can really give you a sense of accomplishment and a humble a guy st the same time.
We packed the boat full of bear early Thursday morning just as it started to rain. Because of this we left our cell phone chargers in the truck and had no way to charge our phones over the next three days. There aren’t a lot of places to use it out there but I was most worried about taking pictures. It really limited our photos unfortunately.
Although we were greeted by rain the lake was very flat so we make short work of the trip across. Got to out shelter by about 8 am and immediately made breakfast before heading out to fish. Lines in the water by 9 am is pretty good considering. We were surprised to find sub 50 degree water very close to camp and found it dropped as low as 43 degrees and as high as 56 within a 1 mile stretch. This was very encouraging. We fished a reef I did well on last time and found small Lakers anywhere from the surface to 70′ down. We ran lines on the surface to try and coax a few salmon or steelhead and found some success. We managed to land 3 steelhead missing at least 6 more. Then we headed back in for dinner before our evening trip out.
We took about a 15 mile hike out to another reef where I’ve had good success and found huge numbers of small Lakers. All fish were under 5 lbs but it was utter chaos for the moments that we were over fish. We had several triples during this period. Never found anything. Big so we headed in for the night.
Woke up Friday looking to make a 20 mile run to another spot on the north side of the island. Water was nearly flat again but we had clear blue skies and little wind. We had lines in the water by 8:30 but didn’t get our first hit until about 10:30. A small laker. We found 57 degree water with 44 degrees only 20′ down. We tried everything from the surface to 60′ down with nothing to show until we tried a deep reef that was about 90′ at the highest point. We trolled it until about 1:30 and managed to pick up about a dozen 5-8 lb Lakers and one that went 34″. Headed back for dinner and decided to make a trip to the south side.
On the south side we found 58 degrees on the surface and it wasn’t until 100′ down did we find water that was sub 50 degrees. I figured we’d setup in 80-120′ and marked probably 100 fish with not one biter. We pulled up into 50-70′ and started catching fish. All Lakers were less than 10 lbs but we managed about a dozen.
Woke up Saturday to some wind so we headed out to check things out. Immediately found 2-4′ waves and decided to make 1 pass on a reef nearby. I tried to go with the wind on the first pass but the waves were going one way, the wind another way and the current yet another way. This made boat control difficult not to mention getting bounced around. After concluding one pass with 1 small laker it seemed that the waves and wind were actually subsiding some so we made some more passes. After about an hour we hooked into one fish that my buddy through was a log. After a 20 minute fight in the rolling waves we finally landed a fat 38″ laker. I think this was probably the heaviest laker in my boat so we were pretty excited. We fished this area until about 3:30 pm after first thinking it would be only one pass. We managed 2 cohos and I think 6 more Lakers over 30″. That was a good time.
We headed back in to pack up our gear so we could head out one more time before making the trek across the pond. We stopped at a reef where we found lots of small fish on Thursday only to find more small fish. We trolled until about 6:30 when the next log hit. We managed another 38″ beauty.
My buddy in the photos is well over 6′ so he can really make some of those fish look small. The fish that I’m holding is his same fish just to compare.
Overall it’s always a good trip if you get back safely. The fishing is just a bonus. Thanks for reading.
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