I forgot to mention a trip with friend Norm and his boys over a week ago. Here is a picture:
Wednesday evening we had some dandy storms come through and left some serious rains. I’m sure it means we will get higher water levels in the lake to improve docking situations.I went to bed early after setting the buzzer for 4 am with exited anticipation of fishing again the next day. After locating some fish the day before, I couldn’t wait until the next day to go after them with some clients from Lake Linden and Chicago… a father and sons foursome whom love to fish. The dad gets his boys together frequently to bond and have a good time fishing and this was one of those times.
I fell asleep quickly and woke suddenly and I opened my eyes it saw it was light out already. I reached for my cell phone to see the time was already 10:16! I could not believe I had slept so long, but then looked closer and noticed it was still Wednesday. The rest of the night was restless until I got out of bed at 4 am to get ready to fish.
The wind seemed to be blowing a little too hard to consider fishing on the big lake, but coming out of the west, I knew we could fish at least in close, protected by by the land and an offshore wind.
We again set some lines close in by the irons of Bete Grise and fished for 1/2 hour there un-successfully before heading out to my “spot.”
Soon after setting the down-riggers in 175 feet of water in Lake Superior to fish for lake trout, we picked up our first fish, and soon the 2nd, both small, but at least we “got the skunk out.” After catching lots of nice eaters (small lake trout), we moved out to a place where I had caught larger fish on a previous outing. We landed a few more there, larger fish before coming in with 13 lakers… a fun day on the water and I’m sure the dad and 3 boys will enjoy every one of their fish. The first and second fish were small, here they are:
then some more and the total catch for the day:
Today, we set out on my 19 footer on calm water with a couple, RN Leann and electrical engineer Aaron, from the Minneapolis area. She had mentioned her desire to catch salmon, Coho or Chinook (King Salmon), but we haven’t seen many in the bay lately. I let them know how good these lakers are to eat, but said we could set some lines in close for coho first and if we catch no salmon soon, we will go deep for lakers.
We came back in with 5 lakers and 1 nice coho. One laker was 10 lbs, so a pretty nice catch for a 1/2 day in Bete Grise.
Surface temperatures have been in the mid-50’s lately, ideal for fish to be suspended and near the surface. In fact the laker and steel-head I caught recently were in a scum-line and feeding on bugs, with their bellies full of them. Scum lines are harder to find here in Bete Grise, but sometimes is there and productive. The wind we had yesterday messed up the fishing a little, at least for suspended fish, but lake trout were still on the bottom in their usual spots. The coho hit on a FinnAction Lure, the Fish Grinch as I call it, with a chartreuse green prism stripe… I’ll have to make some more of them. Lakers hit on green and white, also gold and blue with a pink prism stripe. Trolling speeds of 1.5 to 1.8 are working well.
Fished Lac La Belle in the evening and caught a walleye and this one. I’m not sure, is this a Goldeneye or something?
Brian Helminen
