Brucey and a 15 inch Small Mouth Bass.
All the kids that participated in the tournament. Quite a gang and they won lots of money. Bruce ended up with $30 in his pocket for largest blue gill and 3rd place for most fish!
For the last few weeks, we’ve had really good coho fishing in the Copper Harbor, Bete Gris, Keweenaw area. We’ve even had a few browns, steel head and a splake on charters and pleasure fishing.
On Saturday, August 22nd, I fished with my boys on Lac La Belle in the annual Kids’ Fishing Tournament. We caught a few small mouth bass and some rock bass, but couldn’t seem to find a northern pike or walleye. I was wishing (to myself) that I could be out on Lake Superior trolling for salmon and lake trout, when I decided to call one of my fishing buddies who I knew was out there on the Big Lake.
Digressing just a little… When we signed up for the tournament, I asked the boys where they’d like to fish. “Want to go after trout and salmon or fish the inland waters of Lac La Belle?” Since this was a “kid’s” outing, I’d leave it up to them. I was silently hoping they’d say on Lake Superior, and thought they would, because they knew the salmon bite was pretty good lately. “We wanna fish for bass and pike on Lac La Belle,” they almost said in unison. Ahh shucks, I thought.
Back to the phone call to my buddy: When he answered, he gave his fishing report, “Just 2 coho so far, and missed 2.” Then he shouts, “Hey, get that pole! Fish on… no, this side on the planer board! I gotta go!” He suddenly hung up and I was left wondering what they had on. This “fishing buddy” as I call him (I actually never fished with him, we just talk about it and share notes) is fun to talk to because he’s so excited about fishing. He just started trolling on Lake Superior this summer and he’s having great success with it. It’s fun to see – someone actually as crazy about fishing as I am! “Oh boy,” I thought to myself, “I wish I was there.”
I can’t complain though, I get my share of all types of local fishing: perch fishing with worms, casting all kinds of crank baits, spinner baits, tubes and soft plastics, and Big Lake trolling and jigging for lake trout. In fact, the last time out on my own… Saturday evening, I tried – for the first time – jigging and casting for coho salmon. After starting off trolling and catching 2 coho, I drift fished with 2 spinning rods to see if I could catch one in a non-traditional way. I got one strike on a pink swim-bait, then tried a Little Cleo and spinner, but didn’t land anything. Oh, well, it was fun anyway. I just chalk it up to an experiment, which I usually only try when I’m out on my own.
Yesterday, Bruce and I fished for an hour and he caught a nice bass and his biggest Northern Pike EVER! A 32 incher.
Too windy to fish tomorrow, so I’m going to work on my dock… but back (to work) fishing on Wednesday. See pictures below for a re-cap of the latest fishing.
Soon After the bass, a 32 inch Northern Pike… both released.
One of many coho
Bare Bluff in the background and a nice coho
Coho/Lake Trout double out of Copper Harbor last week.
Lots of Coho Salmon
First splake we got in a while
Lake Trout/Steel head double near Bare Bluff
HT and one of many fish. “Wow, we’ll have to do this again.”
Brian Helminen
