Filmed with James from IDO sunday and monday, we did ok, got two in the boat, one upper 30 and a mid 40 on cowgirls in shallow weeds and sand flats, I lost two for us on monday morning at the boat, and we had action from a lot of other fish, all on similar spots, we had fish on both wind blown weeds, and the back sides of structure too.
Good Luck,
Tanner Wildes
Chris Niskanin had a write up a couple days back. From the St Paul Pioneer Press:
Chris Niskanen: Muskie fishing has been reborn on St. Louis River near Duluth
By Chris Niskanen
Posted: 09/07/2010 12:01:00 AM CDT
Dustin Carlson, 33, took a break from casting for muskies on the St. Louis River near Duluth on Aug. 21, 2010. Carlson has become a fan of the river as muskies stocked over the past 18 years have grown to quite large sizes. (Pioneer Press: Chris Niskanen)
DULUTH, Minn. — Once a dumping ground for raw sewage and industrial waste, the St. Louis River flows into this port town on a tide of triumph these days.
Walleye fishing is nothing short of fantastic. Sturgeon are returning to their ancestral spawning grounds. And smallmouth bass lurk in the swift, tannin-colored waters.
But the real secret in these waters is the return of muskellunge. Dustin Carlson can drive to Lake Vermilion and any number of the state’s finest muskie waters, but he prefers to cast topwater and bucktail baits in the river outside his backdoor.
“There have always been muskies here, going back into the ’50s and ’60s,” said Carlson, who lives in Duluth and operates a muskie guide service, http://www.northlandmuskieadventures.com.
“But muskies were almost wiped out with the pollution. They only started stocking the St. Louis again 18 years ago, but we’ve got fish in that 53-inch range.”
With so many lakes, Minnesota rivers don’t get their due respect, but the St. Louis might be the exception. Rare is the day that fishing boats aren’t plying this river for walleyes or muskies.
Carlson grew up in Wisconsin, where “there are a lot of great muskie lakes, but you rarely catch a big one,” and when he moved to Duluth six years ago, he settled into studying the St. Louis from its rubbly rapids near Jay Cooke State Park to where it dumps into Lake Superior.
He discovered that the river system offers endless surprises, especially when it comes to muskies.
“People want to catch a trophy muskie and they go to lakes like Mille Lacs, Vermilion or Minnetonka, and those are all good lakes,” he said. “But they’ve peaked out for a few years, but not the St. Louis River. These fish here haven’t peaked out yet. They’re still growing.”
Carlson was describing the beauty and excitement of fishing the St. Louis while casting a bucktail that looked like a psychedelic squirrel with huge hooks.
His cousin, Jeff Erickson of Spooner, Wis., was casting a topwater lure, and the two of them were in the rhythm familiar to muskie anglers: casting and probing new water, switching lures and making the traditional “Figure 8” move at boatside by swirling the lure, hoping to entice a following muskie to strike.
Earlier in the summer, I fished the Snake River, another fishing gem, and it struck me how river anglers like Carlson appreciate the unpredictability of rivers. In such dynamic systems, fish move around at the whim of currents, baitfish and water levels.
For anglers, rivers provide the challenge of solving a complicated puzzle.
“With a big east wind, you actually get the wind off Lake Superior blowing the water upstream,” Carlson said.
This, it turned out, was an unkind river day for anglers. Heavy rainstorms had turned the water to a creamy-coffee color, which makes it tough for muskies to see and react to baits.
“In stained water, sometimes muskies like something a little louder,” Carlson said, tying on a bladed Globe lure that he would retrieve across the surface with a boisterous gurgling sound.
From here, we could look downstream and see Duluth, but the river was shallow and actually tricky to negotiate. Carlson eased his boat around many unseen obstacles, knowing that the river could become just a few inches deep if we ventured too far from the main channel.
Later in the day, we headed upstream where the current was swift. Carlson used a trolling motor to keep us in place. The upstream river landscape became steeper and canyonlike. It is a place where Carlson often hears timber wolves calling from the shoreline.
“These muskies hang right behind the big boulders,” Carlson said, casting into the swift current, but the muskies wouldn’t have anything to do with us.
On this day, the muddy water was too much for us to overcome. It is a rare day that Carlson is skunked on the St. Louis, but this was one of them.
Luckily, the best fishing lies ahead. In the next four weeks, determined muskie anglers will begin descending on Mille Lacs, Vermilion and other lakes in search of “hawgs” that have bulked up on a summer diet of tullibees, an oily relative of the herring.
Carlson will chase the muskies on Vermilion but his best efforts will be saved for the St. Louis.
“Muskies get very aggressive in September,” he said. “But I’ll be throwing topwater lures all the way until ice up.”
Chris Niskanen can be reached at [email protected].
I had a blast fishing with you up there, Tanner. Thanks for having me!
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
