Isle Royale First Timer

Not me but I felt Isabelle is finally old enough to come along. We left home around 7AM Sun 7/23 and made it to Grand Portage by about 12:30. Be forewarned if you are heading up that way and want to fill up with non-oxy the GP trading post no longer carries it. I had to drive up to Rydens to fill up with non-oxy. That was about a 45 minute delay in our plans. Another thing to be forewarned about is that you cannot call the ranger station on sundays to get a boater permit. Their phone lines are only open Mon-sat.

Around 2:00 we were finally on our way. Weather for our trip was supposed to be about as calm as it gets for 3 straight days. If you are ever looking at the weather to go to Isle Royale, one of the best conditions to look for is shifting wind directions. So long as one of those directions isn’t SW. any wind from the SW lasting longer than 6 hours or so will make waves. After a nice smooth ride at 30 MPH all the way across we stopped at the closest campsite and found that there was one shelter open. We quickly unloaded most of our stuff and shot over to the ranger station to get the boater permit. This took close to an hour which is why I prefer to do this over the phone. Isabelle got to wonder around the ranger station and saw the moose skeleton and was impressed how big it was. That one looked like a juvenile to me so I told her they are usually bigger. She looked at me with a hint of disbelief. I told her to keep he eyes peeled because they are a lot of them on the island.

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We swung back to our camp and finished setting up, grabbed a snack and some fishing gear and headed out. One of the main goals on this trip was to jig for lake trout in shallow water. I’ve done this a few times before if you hit it just right, the big lakers will go up in 20-30′ on top of rock reefs. We pulled up on the closest reef and marked a couple fish about 40′ down so I started casting. On about the 3rd cast I was able to hook this laker. Isabelle wanted to reel it in so I let her. We bounced around for about 20 more minutes without a bite so we started trolling. We picked up about 7 more small lakers trolling and headed back in for dinner.

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After dinner we were a little bored so we decided to take a stroll in the boat to fill up our water jug with drinking water and look for moose. After filling up the water jug I just let the trolling motor pull around the shoreline and I decided to cast an Xrap toward the shore and after the second jerk that thing got hit like a ton of bricks. It wound up being our first ever Lake Superior brook trout or coaster. Super cool, she wanted to reel it in so I let her. After landing the fish, snapping a couple pics and letting it go we both started casting. I saw a splash behind us, casted toward it and again about two or three jerks with the rod and it got smashed. This time it was fighting much harder. It wound up being about a 20″ coho. That one went in the cooler. As it started to get too dark we motored back to camp and setup our beds and went to sleep.

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Monday morning as we were making breakfast, the other groups camping at our dock told me that a big bull moose had just walked out to the tip of our little island and swam back to the main island. We just missed it. One of the guys mentioned that he thought the moose may swim out to our little island to sleep away from the wolves and would return to the main island during the day to eat. That definitely made sese so we would keep our eyes peeled in case we get another chance to see him again.

We packed up our fishing gear and headed out to a large reef that I’ve done really well jigging on in the past. When we got out there I really struggled to mark any fish. I decided to basically just start dragging tube jigs over 30-40′ just to see if we can find a school of them. We managed to hookup with one laker doing this and it was probably a low 30″ fish but ended up shaking himself off before we could net it.

We bounced around to a couple other spots and once again struggled to mark many fish. I think we wound up catching a couple lakers trolling but it was very slow. We headed over to Rock of Ages light house for some pictures before we headed back in for lunch. But before we got to the dock Isabelle wanted to try casting shorelines again like the night before. We did this for about 20 minutes and just as she was getting board a semi had hit her Xrap and she nearly lost the rod. After the 4 jump in a matter of 5 seconds I knew exactly what it was. This was going to be her first steelhead if we could keep it on the line. We managed to net it and man was that a rush. I also managed to pick up another coaster while casting the shore too. Also picked up a small laker on an Xrap too.

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After lunch we headed back out to the area where we picked up the lakers trolling the day before and struggled once again. I think we picked up one so I sort of know what was wrong. The water on this side of the island was decidedly cooler than the SE side of the island so I checked with Isabelle to see if she wanted to travel another 20 minutes to a spot on the warmer side and she said sure. We went about 12 miles away to find warmer water and it was in the mid 60s vs the mid 50s where we were at. As soon as we got off plane I was marking fish in about 90′. WE got our lines down and fairly quickly we started getting bit. We caught all small lakers and about 5 in total. Fishing was good, I just wish I had gone there earlier in the day. At around 6:30 we packed up and headed back to camp to get dinner. After dinner once again we headed out to cast the shoreline. I wound up picking up one more steelhead. If you’ve never caught a steelhead on spinning gear in Lake Superior, there is nothing else like it in fresh water. The only thing I can compare it to is when I was in the Dominican Republic back in January and I hooked in to two very large barracuda on my spinning gear. After that we headed back to camp without seeing any moose.

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Next morning we were the only ones using our camp we headed out on the boat to try some more casting cranks and as we were headed out we looked back at our island and there was a big bull moose once again heading back to the main island. We managed to pull up within about 100′ of the moose with the trolling motor and got some video and pictures. This turned out to be the highlight of the trip for both of us.

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After the moose we went on to get skunked for the morning but it didn’t matter. We had the absolute perfect weather for the trip. Air temps during the day felt like low to mid 60s and nighttime was mid to upper 50s. There was enough wind to keep the bugs away but never enough to make any waves out there. Our trip back across was the flattest I’ve ever seen it up there. Normally when the water is like glass there are still residual 6″-1′ swells from days before but this day there was literally nothing it was truly flat like a small pond in the evening. We drove across to Pigeon Point to try and do some agate hunting since the water was so flat I figured I could beach the boat on unreachable shorelines. Agate hunting was a bust but we made it back to Grand Portage marina around noon with plenty of time to get home for dinner.

As far as numbers and size of lake trout, this was my worst trip out there ever but I can honestly say it was may favorite trip out there. It couldn’t have been a better experience for either of us. If we were catching more lake trout we probably would’ve never seen the moose or caught so many fish near shore casting cranks. Which is way more fun than reeling in small lake trout while trolling.

Here’s a couple videos I took out there. 2 videos are of the moose and 2 are time lapse videos of our ride across to Pigeon Point and from there to GP.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8W139Mm7nzxsSw356

Sounds like an awesome trip with lots of memories created.

Sound like fun, great pictures and video !

Wow lots of memories!

Good stuff biggill. Nice work getting her out there and having a great trip. My first trip to Isle Royal was right around the same age your daughter is now and it left a lasting impression on me and was a trip I’ll never forgot. Good work dad

Thanks guys. I think on future trips out there I’m going so spend a lot more time casting and trolling the shorelines. Will probably have to do this before August because of the water temps but it gives me another reason to go there earlier in the year. I usually target late July through September and sometimes in October.

“As far as numbers and size of lake trout, this was my worst trip out there ever but I can honestly say it was may favorite trip out there. It couldn’t have been a better experience for either of us.”

That is my favorite quote. Sums it up perfectly – GREAT JOB DAD!!!!

Sounds like a fantastic trip.

This is awesome, thanks for sharing!

Awesome I could see how casting those shorelines would be a blast. I want to try that early summer around the apostle islands. I bet that could catch some fish too.