A Trip to The Rock - Lake Superior - Lake Superior

Got the opportunity to make a bucket list trip to Stannard Rock. I hear and see so much about the place and how it’s such a remote destination where the lake trout are big and hungry.

We left last Friday afternoon and arrived in Big Bay MI around 1:30 AM. Woke up at about 6:00 AM local time and checked the wind. It was supposed to die down from 10-20 kn to 5-10. In the next hour it did exactly that. We headed hit the water for the 35 mile trip out to the rock in 1-3’ waves and made it out there in about an hour. We drove around and started marking fish in 40-50’. Started jigging but couldn’t get anything to commit. A couple hours later we started trolling and started picking up 3-5 lb lakers right away. Around noon we decided to try jigging again so we pulled up on a 25’ hump and first cast had 4-5 lakers following our bat right to the boat. After a couple hours we manta few more 3-8 lb lake trout and started trolling again. Picked up a few more and for the evening we pulled up on another hump and picked up a few more cookie cutter lakers. We headed back in for the night wondering where the big fish were. We battled 2-4’ waves back to shore quartering the waves which took a good hour to hour and a half.

Day two started earlier at 5 am and headed out to the rock with an amazing sunrise and <1’ waves. We quickly pulled up on a hump and started casting jigs again. It took 2-3 bumps and a couple hour or so later we stared catching a few lakers but this time we started seeing some giants following our baits. These fish were 20lbs + without a doubt. Pretty cool. Would’ve been better if we would’ve hooked up with one. We spent about 4 hours trolling midday and never had a sniff. We pulled up on another hump for the evening and immediately started seeing multiple giants following our baits. We caught a few more 3-8 pounders but never connected with a giant.

Our best bait was a 4-5” white tube jig with a 3/4 oz tube jig head. Second place was a 5-6” white swim bait.

Overall it was a great trip. You can’t complain when you cover over 150 miles of water on Lake Superior without any issues but I will say that it didn’t really meet our expectations. I got the impression that this was some remote place where nobody goes but there were 8-10 boats out there each day and the entire fleet had the whole area covered like a blanket. I was expecting fish that had never seen a lure but instead these fish were clearly very heavily pressured.

I may go back some day but I think I’d pick a different time of year where there isn’t so much pressure. Possibly late September or early October. Or later Firth’s weather permits.

Feel free to ask if you’ve go the itch to fish Stannard Rock. I can give some better insight on what to do, where to go and where to stay.

Attachments:

3BEEE5E7-043D-4F72-A0E4-07C3512FC6B2.jpeg
E02708FD-A817-4E6F-B982-3A3B5DD3CA48.jpeg
4A434B36-D06D-426B-BFB6-1E38D4716AED.jpeg

Not really. I’ve made 20+ crossings to and from Isle Royale and battled some pretty nasty conditions. I’ve got a pretty good handle of what the conditions are going to be like on the water by looking at the forecast. The only variable is how the wind acts on that part of the lake. Every area of the lake the wind acts differently.

For example. A west wind onshore near Isle Royale ends up being a stiff SW on the water. Makes for a difficult crossing. A S wind at the rock can be a light S wind or it can come pretty stiff out of the west as it curls around the Keweenaw Peninsula.

We took my buddies 620 out there and the ride was pretty comfortable in 1-3’ waves with the occasional 4 footer.

My biggest advice is to have a GOOD marine VHF radio. We only had a handheld and were the last ones out there on Sunday evening. Something I wasn’t really comfortable with. We only had about a 3 mile range with that thing. The nearest person was probably 40 miles away.

I can shoot you my phone number if you ever make firm plans and want some more info.