When is the last time you went after lake trout with 37-degree water temperatures? Don’t fish lakers? How about pike? Aside from ice-fishing and even the most brutal of late fall trips, people rarely get a chance to target these species when the temp on the graph is that low. Even more peculiar were several other weather-related truths: inshore air-temps were 70 degrees, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky or a breath of wind, and there was skim ice in several places on the lake. It’s the kind of thing that TV-news channels send a van with a meteorologist for, but James and I had the pleasure of fishing it.
In case you hadn’t read the title, it should come as no surprise that we were fishing Lake Superior. You also won’t be shocked to know that with hoodies and raingear, we were still under-dressed. The report at the landing was poor-to-fair, and we knew that the water should be warmer to put most of our trolling patterns into play. Speaking of trolling, much of what I know on this body of water has simply rubbed off from IDO Pro-staff Grant Sorenson, and James via several trips we’ve made to troll leadcore for aggressive lakers. I’ll be the first to admit that my expectations were a bit on the low side with teeth chattering and digits frozen ice-fishing-style on the ride out to our first run.
Trolling
With temps where they were, shallow was where we would start by looking for good runs along rock walls and boulders near-shore. The start was slow, with few fish marked, and those that did graph were what I called “walleyes.” Glued to the bottom, these big arcs looked about as active as the boulders they were stuck to. It wasn’t long however, and we hit a fish on a straight lead-rod, directly behind the boat and ticking bottom with a Taildancer. Not long after, another fish, this time with 4 colors of the Sufix Advanced Lead-core behind a board. What started slowly and began to look promising, with a handful of decent red-fins in the boat, fizzled as quickly as it began. Those fish even fought like they were cold, being far less aggressive than we had hoped for a good trolling run.
Jigging
Plan B involved some jigging, and this is where clarity and the conditions made it challenging. We did find a few fish shallow, but we needed just a touch of wind to really get it going in less than 50 FOW, with our jigs being visible from the boat in nearly 40FOW. I got on the board early with a small laker that really just lightly tapped the jig, and swam upward…these fish were not acting like the trout of summer! 15 minutes later, James hooked into something a bit better, and what followed, was a slow bite for only a handful of fish, but they were the right fish. I’m used to James calling his shots quite well, but these fish would literally play dead for a bit, burp some air near-surface, then begin to put the screws to you. In 40-60FOW, we thought this odd, but it sure was a blast when they put their foot down on the pedal. On medium-heavy spinning tackle, I’m not sure there’s much more fun that can be had in freshwater, with these fish’s complete and total refusal to give-up the fight. James had the hot-hand with the big fish, putting a few in the boat around the 20lb mark, both of which had eelpout just barely sticking out of their throats. No measurements were taken on these trout, though I’m kicking myself for not being a better first-mate and getting some vitals. Either way, the pictures speak for themselves, and these were some quality fish!
Casting
With the mid-afternoon sun beating down, conditions were more bearable, but the fish had pushed off. Both of our top plans were exhausted, so we decided to do some exploring up shallow. Very shallow on shorelines, for anything that might be up sunning and taking advantage of what warmer water temps could be found. As it turned out, fish of all species were looking for the warmer water too. Our baits of choice were stickbaits. #10 X-Raps to be exact. While we tried other varieties, James ended up with an albino shiner, and myself with a hot head. This type of fishing is similar to what we’ve done on Rainy, Red, Lake of the Woods, and any other of the famous big water bodies that hold good shallow stickbait bites. The difference? We caught lake trout, pike, and James even brought a steelhead boatside. While the lakers were more apt to follow than strike, that hot-head X-Rap drove those pike nuts, and quickly became a favorite for the toothy critters. A high 30’s fish and a 42” red gator of the north-country capped off the day for us. I’ve never seen a pike so red before, and this was truly a special fish that hit and fought every bit her size. My personal best for pike is 44”es, but I’ve never caught one as thick and heavy as this fish. Low 20’s? Who knows. Call it a testament to the varied and incredible fishery, call it whatever you’d like, I call it about as much fun as any day on the water I can remember for some time.
Joel