Hi Tom. Saw your other post in the Lake Superior thread last night and just sent you a PM as well with a few options depending on what type of fishing you were hoping to do.

Unless the weather forecast takes a turn for the worse (always a distinct possibility up there this time of year). I’ll be up there middle of next week and trying to get out on Superior a couple last times before the season closes – if that is something that would be of interest to you some morning or afternoon.

PM has my contact info if you have any other questions on the fishing options I mentioned or other things to do in the area.

Greetings Tom. You bringing your boat up and looking to get after some walleye/smallmouth, or were you more looking for info on fishing the big lake or local rivers/streams?

Inland stream fishing for trout won’t really be an option as the season closes on 9/30, but still some good options in the very lower sections of Superior tributary streams and the big lake in general. (Or inland lakes if that’s more what you’re looking to do).

Can’t write a more helpful response yet tonight, but will shoot you a PM first thing in the morning with some possible options for you, depending on what type of fishing you were looking to do.

Mos’ wrote:

Is there a bite here in the spring into the summer as well even it may not be as good as Nov/Dec? I will be trailering a fair distance so weather wise travel would be better now.

Surprised no one has replied to your post yet, but IMO now (May through the end of June) is likely the best time of the entire year to be fishing out of McQuade so by all means find a couple nice weather/low wind days and give it a go!

Shouldn’t have to run far. Can set your lines right outside the harbor and start trolling back towards Duluth. The stretch from McQuade to the Lester River should be productive, just need to figure out the depth (how far offshore) the Coho are holding over. A swing through Marine General on your way into town should give you a good idea of where to start (not to mention the other boats already out on the lake). Also can troll N up past the French and Knife Rivers as well without having to motor very far at all.

While you are out on the water look for seams along mudlines, water color changes, or “slicks” where the texture of the surface ripples smooth out some. Those will mark slight water temp changes that often concentrate insects/baitfish and therefore the trout & salmon.

Stickbaits in the top 15′ should produce some Coho, smaller Lakers and the occasional Steelhead this time of year. If you have downriggers, dipsy divers, snap weights or heavier leadcore/copper rigs- can run one or two of those deeper for Lakers as well.

Should go without saying, but there are some additional safety equipment requirements required while boating out on the Great Lakes that you may or may not already have. The MN DNR has a Lake Superior Boating Guide that you can google/download that will contain all that and other useful info if it is your first trip out in the big lake.

Be warned though, once you get the hang of it fishing the great lakes becomes addicting :-). I used to walleye/smallmouth fish 90% of the time, now I only chase Walleye a couple times each summer and spend every other available fishing day out on Superior or Michigan.

Normally, by mid-late summer up on the N. Shore you’d need a day or two of good N or NW winds for the nearshore sfc temps to drop much. With a couple days of good offshore winds, however, the warmer surface water can essentially get pushed out towards the middle of the lake, which in turn gets replaced by colder water from deeper in the water column. A nearshore 10-12 degree change over a couple of days isn’t all that unusual in that case.

Was up in Grand Marais Tues-Thurs last week with predominantly NE or W/SW winds so was essentially blowing the surface water laterally along the shore, so didn’t see any change over the 3 days (65 or so everywhere I fished).

On that same Coastwatch website somewhere is a link to animated surface current graphics. Can get an idea from those how the currents have set up and if you might expect offshore flow with the associated possibility for significant surface temp changes.

In GM, the Best Western on the east side of the Harbor may work as I think there’s a small gravel parking lot across the street you might be able to get the boat/truck in overnight, otherwise possibly the Aspen Inn on the N. side of 61 as you come into town has a bit of a parking lot that might not be overly full on a weeknight.

Otherwise, you likely would likely have plenty of parking room at the AmericInn down in Tofte. That would only be a 25 miles or so into GM, but also very convenient to the launch in Tac Harbor if you wanted to launch out of there one day. Also has the benefit of being right next door to the Tofte Holiday which has non-oxy premium if you need to top off the boat.

Heading up that way myself for a few days sometime this next week, just not sure yet if it will be early in the week or later. Sounds like some pretty tough fishing up there so far this month, hoping to hear some good news from folks out this weekend.

biggill wrote:

Here’s a bit of advice, stay away from grand portage on the second weekend of August..

LOL, between Fisherman’s Picnic in GM then Rendezvous Days in GP I think I’d rather ride my bike down the center lane of 494 than be caught on 61 either of the first two weekends in August

Did you guys have a reservation to stay in GP and run out/back each day or did you spend the night on the Island?

Spectacular looking Redfin by the way!

Outstanding Superior King Biggill, congrats! Glad you had a good trip and the lake behaved enough to get in some quality fishing time and appreciate you taking the time to share the report/pics. I felt the same way upon returning that it certainly does get you comfortable with your boat. This is the 4th season with my current boat and I built way more confidence in her in that one weekend than in the 3 other summers combined.

Thanks to both of you for the additional info on the sidescan as well. Just added the feature when I upgraded my plotter last season and still figuring out how to best apply it to fishing the big lake.

Will be spending most of next week up in Lutsen so hope to get out of Tac Harbor and GM a couple of times each, but doubt I’ll be able to squeeze in another run out to the island.

Thanks again for the report!

Have fun Biggill, hopefully you’ll have some calmer seas! Was definitely fishable for us, just had to work harder running the boat than we would have liked.

Saw the same report from James so we did run some white-backed spoons as well as some copper spoons as another friend had reported luck with those as well (over standard silver). Copper and white took fish about equally and smaller spoons did seem to out perform mag size spoons for us. However the white/red bloody nose spoon took several fish and was a mag size.

I will say that my “big three” go-to laker killers were completely dead for us the whole trip, those being: mag Agent Orange, mag Atomic Melon, and Jim’s FB ’57 Chevy.

Phil,

Sent you a PM with a couple of charter recommendations and some additional info. Chances are good I’ll be up in the Tofte-GM area at some point during late July-early Aug and usually have a couple of open seats, but still too early to know my schedule unfortunately.

You are correct in that the NE or E winds are going to be the worst for a small boater in the Duluth/Superior end of the lake. Part of the equation also is how long the wind will be blowing out of the E/NE as it can sometimes take a couple of days for the larger swells to develop. Unless it gets gusty think most small boaters can handle the sustained NE winds up to 12 knots or so, but if it is blowing 10 knots over a period of several days from the same direction the swells may build a bit more than you’d be comfortable with. N winds usually aren’t that bad when fishing the N. Shore side. They usually tend to be gusty and shift a bit as the wind comes down the hill towards the water, but the waves aren’t bad until you get several miles offshore.

My old 18′ center console was more of a bay/flats boat and my personal limit was around 17 kts and/or 2′ waves. Much more than that and it was uncomfortable (if not dangerous) hanging over the side to set a rigger or net a fish.

I use the NOAA Marine point forecast website to get a feel for the wind/waves as my trip dates appear. You can click various points on the map to get an idea what the wind/waves are forecast to be for that part of the lake. As with anything, not always 100% accurate, but tends to be in the ballpark a large percentage of time.

As for places to launch, the city of Superior runs a couple of nice facilities where you can launch/park for the day for $5. One is on Barkers Island and another is Loon’s Foot landing which is right off of US2 and 30th Ave. On the Duluth side of the lake, the two most convenient are Rice Point Landing (Garfield Ave, underneath the Blatnik Bridge) or the far end of town a couple miles up old Hwy61 at McQuade Landing) Both of those are DNR run ramps with no launch/parking fees.

Looks like a nice weekend on tap up there so as things look right now you’d probably be fine even with NE winds. Worst case, if the wind/waves kick up more then you’d like, run back in to the harbor and St. Louis river and find some Walleyes

I second calling or swinging by Marine General when you’re up in Duluth. They are always very helpful and happy to get you started in the right direction. Also, if you haven’t already, download and read the short fishing manual put out by the Western Lake Superior Trollers Assn. (WLSTA). Several of their members have put together a nice .pdf with helpful tips, methods, areas for early spring/summer fishing in and around Duluth/Superior.

Can’t get the direct link to work, but can find it by following the “Fishing” link at http://www.wlsta.org

According to a couple of posts over on GLA yesterday was still ice inside the McQuade breakwalls as of Wednesday. That person still estimated another week or so, FWIW.

Even further up the shore (Tac Harbor-Hovland) where I fish most of the time, 150′ would be sufficient 90% of the time. Can only think of a few times I’ve ever run deeper than 140′ or so and that was only on really slow days where I was in desperate search mode. I do almost always have one rigger down 80-120′ in that stretch of the shore, however, so if you’ll be fishing in that neck of the woods an electric rigger would be very beneficial. Cranking my old Big Jon manual up from 100+’ feet multiple times every day was quite the chore.

Worst case, I’m almost positive you could simply re-spool most any rigger with 200′ of new wire if you eventually determined 150′ wasn’t enough. Maybe not the smallest Cannons (Lake Troll, I think they are), but I do know my previous Big Jon manuals held 200’+ and my current Cannon Mag 10’s hold 250′ easily.

FWIW- If you do decide to go with used electric, I will likely be selling a couple of my Cannon Mag 10’s this spring as the never-ending boat upgrade proce$$ continues… Can PM me, or can keep an eye out on the classified forum here and over at GLA as I’ll eventually be listing them there when I get around to it.

Regardless, I agree with everyone else that you should be good to go, at least initially, with 150′ of wire.

Scott, I’ll shoot you a separate PM with how I set up my rods/reels as there is so much personal preference involved that I’m sure you would get a different answer from every reply. Besides, Mark alredy got you started off here with some good advice. FWIW, my rods are all Cabelas Depthmasters or Okuma Classics and agree that the Okumas definitely have more backbone, though I do still use Medium action Depthmasters as my primary downrigger rods. For my dipsy diver and lead core rods I do prefer the stiffer Okumas. Like Mark, I also recommend as heavy a downrigger ball as you can handle (think I run 12# weights). Minimizes blowback, keeps the counters on the riggers relatively more accurate and also keeps the rigger weights in view on my sonar at greater depths.

You’ll definitely want to add some flashers/flies and stickbaits to your collection of spoons. I’ll PM you my personal list of top producers, but as with rigging rods, am sure everyone around here has their own preferences and things they feel the most confident running. Do yourself a favor though and swing through Marine General in Duluth next time you are in that area. I’ve always found them to be very helpful/knowledgeable and can get you set up with good basic assortment of proven lures to compliment the spoons you already have.

Going to be a long winter so pick up a copy of “Great Lakes Salmon and Trout Fishing” by Dan Keating and Chip Porter. Lots of good info for someone just getting started. When I first got back into fishing the big lake, I based my equipment/line/rod selections largely off of what they recommended and then adjusted from there after a couple of seasons, once I got a better feel for how I liked to run things.

Your PM asked about other online resources for N. Shore fishing, but unfortunately, not too many N. Shore specific (or even Lake Superior, for that matter) websites in particular to learn from. Message boards like IDO are far and away the best sources of info and Ron and Mark already replied with a couple of other great forums/message boards to check in with every now and then. Not sure if IDO wants me posting links to external forums so don’t want to get in trouble with the mods, but definitely do keep an eye on the appropriate HotSpot Outdoors message boards and the Great Lakes Angler forums. The outdoor forums over at Lake State Fishing also have a Duluth-North Shore forum that you can keep an eye on for reports and general information. GLA, in particular, is probably the best (most active) Lake Superior specific forum, but also has active equipment classifieds and species specific areas to share info and learn from other anglers. Can literally spend hours and hours sifting through old posts on those three sites, in addition to IDO to get some good info. If you do that, you’ll also start to see some of the same lure colors/patterns come up time and time again so gives you an idea of what you might want to stock up on over the off season if you don’t have them on hand already.

One local website, however, you should visit would be the Western Lake Superior Troller’s Association (wlsta.org). They have a trolling guide / handbook that you can download in .pdf form that has various articles and information about early, mid and later season fishing specifically in the Duluth-Superior area.

I’ll shoot you a PM later on with some more info, but this should give you plenty of info to get started.

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Loved the report, thanks for posting! If that indeed ends up being your last Superior trip of the season, what a way to finish off the year!

Unfortunately, my main plotter is a Humminbird so can only directly compare my MN Lakemaster chip and my Navionics + chip for Lake Superior waters. Obviously, my opinion of the Lakemaster chip is irrelevant for your HDS, but if you go to the Navionics WebApp webpage, zoom in on Superior/Isle Royale and enable the sonar charts layer, that will be the level of detail you’ll find on the Navionics + card for all of Superior (except the card will be in feet, not meters like the WebApp defaults to).

Actual depth accuracy does seem decrease somewhat the further from shore you get, but the general contours are accurate enough to be useful. I will say that there are a lot of small underwater humps and reefs in the areas that I fish most frequently that are not marked, so I assume this is the case all up and down the shore, but all of the major ones are outlined well enough.

I keep telling myself that I should take a day and record a few sonar logs to upload to Navionics to see if their sonar charts feature is a feasible way to improve on detail/accuracy, but have yet to give that a shot.

If possible, I’d try to run into a Cabelas/Gander/Marine General and see if they’ll pop in the correct Lowrance Insight chip(s) for the parts of Superior you are interested in. At least then you’d have something to compare the Navionics + with. I did that before purchasing my MN Lakemaster chip and much prefer it for western Lake Superior, except for the fact that all data ends somewhere around Silver Bay, so is completely useless to me NE of there.

I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced better or worse fishing up there directly associated with the wind, other than the affect the wind has on wave height/direction. I’ve caught as many fish on grey days in 2-3 footers as I have in clear skies and calm seas, but sure is more pleasant catching them when you’re not bracing yourself against the gunwale every time you stand up.

Obviously, on the N. Shore, E through S winds can see some of the roughest conditions due to the fetch the waves have to build across all that open water. N/NW winds tend to be more gusty, especially the further up the shore you go but unless you plan on heading miles offshore you wouldn’t have to deal with larger swells.

Far as I’m concerned, any day that is calm enough to get out on Superior I’d head out there and give it a shot!

Wind/wave direction will affect where the most active fish are on any given day though as the wind will move the surface water around and affect the nearshore water temperatures. So the location and depth of that 48-54 degree water you may have been catching fish in for two days may move further in, further out, further up, further down or disperse completely with a day or two of different winds so you’ll probably have to look around to find the active fish again (not always an easy task in all that water – at least for a part-time hack like me).

If you haven’t already found it, this NOAA site is great for getting a feeling for the nearshore forecast as you get closer to the dates of your trip.

Spoons have definitely outproduced everything else for me this summer, as they usually do every year by mid-late summer. I run mine clean whether I fish them off of a rigger, dipsy or leadcore. I do always throw out at least one flasher-fly or a dodger-squid to see if there’s a preference and those do tend to pick up a few more salmon for me when they’re in the area, but I’ve caught plenty of Chinook on spoons as well. Can check out some of the other threads around here for recent reports of what colors/spoons have been producing.

Think others have mentioned it, but I’d stop by Marine General on your way through Duluth too if you can. They’re always more than happy to share the latest reports and set you up with what has been hot.

If the weather is nice and I can break away from work early enough on Friday going to try to convince the wife to head North with me this weekend. Will post a report if I manage to pull it off. Seeing James’ and Ssperch’s big laker photos this past week has made me jealous as the bigger lakers have been eluding me so far this season.

Nice work! Looks like a great couple of days, congrats. The way the fishing has finally started picking up I may have to drop a couple days of work and head back up again sooner, rather than later.

James Holst wrote:

I really dig your reports. As a fairly inexperienced Great Lakes angler detailed info like what you’re sharing is such an invaluable learning tool as it really helps to be able to compare approaches.

I appreciate the compliment, but I’d gladly trade most of my detail for the ability to insert a few more photos of 30# lakers in my reports

Seriously though, it’s definitely a two-way street as I rarely ran leadcore past mid-summer until seeing some of those videos that James and Grant posted the past couple of years. Those converted me real quick to always having at least one or two LC rods in my spread whenever possible.

To be honest, I’ve found most Lake Superior anglers tend to be very free with the information that they choose to share. Maybe it is the smaller community/volume of anglers on Superior combined with the vastness of the lake and greater distance between ports that attracting a crowd isn’t really an issue- short of perhaps a holiday weekend out of the Twin Ports. As such, I’m always more than willing to pass on as much detail I can because I’ve had the same favor returned to me countless numbers of times through other posters’ reports both here and some other places, like GLA.

James, I just reread your Grand Portage report and hadn’t noticed the first time that you had said nearly the same thing about the fish wanting the mag sized spoons! My initial tendency when something still isn’t firing after multiple lure and color changes is to go smaller, not larger; so it took me a day and a half to get around to trying Mag spoons on my leadcore rods, which then immediately started picking up fish. Am going to have to file that one away for future reference!

The regular size Jim’s FB spoons are also my usual spoons of choice, but as you mentioned, there are comparatively few Jim’s mag sized colors available, so most of my mag spoons end up being Moonshine or Pro-King.

Wow, looked like a great trip! Had hoped to make it to Grand Portage and/or Isle Royale this summer, but didn’t pan out. Glad to hear that that 42″-er is back swimming around for me to catch next summer though!

For the benefit of anyone else headed North up the shore for the holiday weekend, I was just back up in Lutsen Mon-Tues to take my father and his friend out for a couple of days on the big lake. Fished out of GM the first morning and Tac Harbor the 2nd. Both days were very good for Lakers in 85-120 FOW. Fish ranged from 4# – 12# for the most part (no monsters like James and co. found) and from largely the bottom half of the water column. Mostly a downrigger bite for us. I always run a couple of LC rods too, but they were eerily silent this trip – until I finally got around to putting a couple of mag sized spoons on the LC rods and then they started picking up lakers also.

Hot spoons for us were Jim’s Flashback Watermelon (reg), Jim’s Monkey Puke (reg), Moonshine Atomic Melon (Mag), Moonshine Agent Orange (Mag), Moonshine green Flounder Pounder (mag) and a Silver Protroll 8″ Flasher with Lt Blue/White Howie fly. Some of my usual producers: 57’Chevy spoons/stickbaits, Firetiger stickbaits , Gold Dr Spoons, Wonderbread spoons, Kevorkian spoons were completely dead. Down speeds of 1.8 to 2.5 took fish. Tried a bit faster at times thinking maybe any salmon in the area were looking for more action, but still no Chinook and also reduced our laker bite in the process.

A few very small Coho on small dodger + squid or peanut fly but they were few and far between this week with none of the nice football Chinook that I was catching in the same water just 10 days earlier.

Hope to make it up there again for at least one more trip sometime in mid-Sept, but good luck to anyone headed out on the Gitch for the holiday weekend!

By “on fire”, perhaps he meant crashing and burning ;-). From reports I’ve seen and folks I’ve talked to up there, the guys fishing out of TH and out on the state line out of DLH/McQuade have still been having a tough time finding any silver fish and usually scrape together a morning or evening with 2-3 lakers.

I haven’t personally fished that part of the shore since late June, but did spend most of last week out of Grand Marais and Taconite Harbor. Fishing was still slower than normal, but did manage to put a few in the boat each day. Chinook were biting fairly well for me up in that area. Only one Coho all week and from all accounts the larger lake trout were still sulking several miles offshore suspended in the top 50′ over 500-800 FOW. The lake trout I caught near shore were far fewer and smaller than I normally average for this time of year.

Best reports I’ve heard recently have been out of Silver Bay where supposedly guys have been doing OK in 80-100 FOW with some Coho (finally) starting to show up in greater numbers. My recommendation would be to try heading further up the shore to the Twin Points or Silver Bay area.

I’ll be headed back up GM/Tac Harbor early next week so hope to get on the water for a couple more trips if the weather cooperates and can let you know what I find further up in that area.

-ML

My pleasure! Wish we had found you a couple more fish, but glad you both got to experience your first Lake Superior Lake Trout and Chinook. Was great company and enjoyed talking some fishing and hockey with you and the Tracker-in-law. Like you said, it is interesting how forums/web communities each develop their own character & personalities over the years. Sounds like your father played a large part in building the foundation for the great community that I’ve discovered here in the short year I’ve been a member.

Along those lines, I also got a chance to trade texts/reports and radio chatter with @mark-bruzek and fished essentially alongside him one day last week out of Tac Harbor. Unfortunately, a bit slower of a morning for both of us that particular day, but nice to cover a bit more water than either of us could have done alone!

Hope you guys enjoyed the rest of your vacation! If (when) you and/or Dave are ever back up in that neck of the woods, shoot me a note and if our schedules coincide, you guys are welcome back out anytime!

At your convenience, shoot me those pics too, when you get home and have a chance to d/l them

While I’m at it, here’s a few of of my own pics from last Weds. Was the perfect day on the North Shore with my wife: On the big lake for a few hours at dawn (7/8 with 5 Chinook and 2 lakers) and picked 4 pints of blueberries at dusk.

-ML

PS. Did Dave find those blueberries?

Tac Harbor 8/13/14

deertracker wrote:

Also, if anyone knows how the blueberry crop is this year. We like to go picking then have fresh blueberry muffins and pancakes the next morning.
DT

Blueberries are in great shape right now so think your breakfasts are lookin’ good!

I still have to find the fish, however. Only made it out once yet though for a couple of hours Sunday afternoon and only managed one Laker. Wife wasn’t too keen on dodging showers all day today so picked a couple pints of raspberries and blueberries between the dark clouds instead of taking the boat out. Back at the fish tomorrow though!

ssperch wrote:

Any reccomendations on a cheap place to stay or camp around McQuade harbor?

If you’d rather not camp, Cape Superior Inn is right next door to McQuade. Nothing fancy, but I stayed there last year one night on a last minute mid-week trip. Mid week rate was ~$90 I think, which was $30-$40 cheaper/night than anything available up the road in TH or down the road in DLH at the time.

James Holst wrote:

What a great offer.

Six lines is always better than two! Besides, if the fishing is slow on a given morning, I’m usually out of stuff to talk to myself about by 7:45.

Surface temps near shore are still a month behind normal I’m guessing so may still be able to catch something near-shore around the harbor. Better bet would be to run back down 61 and hit the mouth of the Cascade around dawn or dusk. Not sure of your timing, but if you are up there the week of the 10th-16th I will be fishing out of GM as often as the weather allows and depending on some friends’ plans, may be fishing solo the later part of that week. If that is the case, could easily accommodate some company in the boat-if you want to get out on the lake for a morning/evening.

Dan’s did some work on my Yamaha kicker this spring. Not the cheapest labor-wise, but they did a good job and correctly identified and troubleshot a problem with the motor that had been eluding me for a couple of years.

Also there’s Great American Marine on 84th between Lyndale and Nicollet. Never had work performed there, but have worked with their parts dept a few times.

Won’t make it up there this weekend, but have M-We off next week so thinking about heading up to Washburn or S Shore out of Loon’s for one last hurrah before putting the boat to bed for the winter. Let us know how you fare if the weather cooperates enough for you to make it out!

Just got back from Lutsen myself. Launched out of GM on Sunday for a few hours. Sent you a PM with more info.