Kabetogama Fishing Report 6-10-06

Well I just got back from fishing in the real God’s country. My first trip to lake Kabetogama will not be my last. Seven days of fishing on this body of water has really made an impression on me. With excellent weather and no reception with my cell phone, this truly was a great vacation. We stayed at Lakeview resort www.lakeviewkabetogama.com Lake Kabetogama is located on the Rainy,Crane and Vermillion chain of lakes about 30 miles east of International Falls Minnesota. Just a short 4.5 hour drive north of Mpls. I cant say enough about the resort. Clean cabins, dock service and just that old fashion northern Minnesota resort atmosphere like I had experienced with my father back in the 70’s. Randy and Sherry Regnier owners of Lakeview Resort really go the extra mile to provide excellent service. This is something resorts lack now days. Oh yea, and the fishing…

Having never fished Kab before, I got a couple lake maps and stopped at the Gateway General Store in Kabetogama for the latest report. “Fish are biting at all depths” is what I was told. Hmmm.. hopefully I’ll get more info at the resort. The first day of fishing was mostly a search and scan type of day. Randy of Lakeview had taken out some customers to show them where to fish. Yes, the resort owner got into their boat and showed them were to fish. Talk about customer service. I found fish almost immediately fishing the shoreline points close to the resort. My gal and I worked the area points with long snells and leeches and did very well. But these points only held active fish if the wind was blowing. So a few guys from the resort and I were doing some smart talking and they had said the shallow water bite was pretty good. So I headed for the shallow weeds in Duck Bay on day three. I found the bay was mainly 5-6 feet of water with some good weedlines. What a perfect place to drag some B-fish-N Ringworms. Using Chartreuse and Black/white Ringworms with a 3/32 oz H2O jigs, we dragged our jigs backtrolling along the weedlines and smacked some 23 inch fish at high noon with sunny skies.

These shallow walleyes would just crush those Ringworms. But the bread and butter spot I would find on day 4 would be in the main lake. I switched over to crawler/spinner rigs to cover more water in search of slot fish. Kabetogama has a 13″-17″ one over 23″ slot. The paper maps I had were great for fishing shorelines and islands but the detail on the main lake structure was not very good. Using my Lakemaster chip I was able to find some main lake humps that were literally loaded with walleyes and sauger. I had the rare luxury of fishing alone on day 4 and hit the mother lode at about 9:30 am. Backtrolling spinner/crawler combos on a gravel bar in 24 feet, I had 4 slot fish in the box in about 30 minutes. Better head in and get ma or she’ll be mad. So we loaded up the dogs and got my gal in the boat and fished the main lake gravel for the remainder of the week with excellent results.

What I enjoyed most about fishing Kab was the lack of boat traffic and the fact that the lake doesn’t have maps or GPS chips that clearly show every hot spot. If your a novice, the resort will help you find fish. They want your repeat business and go the extra mile to do so. If your an avid angler, you have miles of untapped structure with no boat traffic. And the lake scenery is unbelievable. I could have spent the entire week just looking but those walleyes keep me busy. Next year I plan on staying for two weeks. Well back to reality next week and back to fishing the pond…..