From July 26th through August 18th I lived the up north life. I spent nearly an entire month fishing for one week in Wisconsin, followed by a week of pursuing muskies in Northwest Ontario on Lake of the Woods, and then returning to Wisconsin for another week to conclude my annual epic summer classic trip; 23 days in total. August isn’t a time for numbers to me, but more for big fish. A lot of fish were caught, some of my biggest of the season – smallmouth bass, muskies, and northern pike.
Due to potential length of this post, I will share my Ontario trip separately through an article format pictorial that I will be sharing at a few different outlets. I should have this unique story finished by the weekend. For now, all I have is the smallmouth bass and backwoods adventures from up north to keep you engaged with.
I departed from Chicago on Friday afternoon, the 26th, to arrive in an autumn-like setting which lasted throughout the entire first weekend of this adventure. Highs were in the upper 50’s, the fishing flat out sucked due to coldfront and bluebird sky postfrontal conditions, and I spent majority of this first week toying with the new jon boat. A few of the cool things I did were float tripping for muskies down the Wisconsin River covering 2 miles of water, and going on solo backwoods adventures to the lakes and places seldom accessed by the masses. If I had the proper tow vehicle I would have been able to access even more places but till that happens I’m forced to live with what I’ve got.
This weekend was the second time the new boat was used. Although the fishing was poor, it performed flawlessly and handled with ease. It’s a luxury to have something that can float in 2 inches of water, be dragged through the smallest of streams to access larger lakes, fit through 50 inch wide culverts beneath roads, have too much space to imagine for comfortable angling (seriously have TONS of room and storage space), and stability to allow a rookie like myself to catch his first toothys with the fly rod.
During this half-day float trip I raised three muskies on my standard gear and then proceeded to work them with my 10wt Cortland fly set-up. I wasn’t able to catch either of these upper 30 inchers, but this 30 inch pike made the work worthwhile. I feel like I have more confidence with the fly rod than my usual hardware in certain specific situations.
It took one of buddy Jonn Graham’s custom tied articulates. I’ll be getting a couple more in different colors this next winter! The net was overkill, but the first time I got to use my new $150 Frabill, which would eventually net 21 muskies and dozens of 40 inch pike a week later.
Below are a few images from my backwoods trekking. On this trip (7/29), I was able to access a small 120 acre lake through a 20ft wide stream with average depth of 6 inches. In order to get here I had to launch from a nearby lake and motor over to this small feeder stream where I then strapped on the waders and dragged myself through for several yards. I fished this private lake for muskies. I couldn’t have fished a worse day than bluebird skies and no wind, but with knowledge of 45 inchers residing here and an A2 fishery I will have to return again on a more ideal day this fall. It was worth the work, and worth a return trip. The habitat and weed cover on this lake was spectacular.
As the first week progressed, the weather finally stabilized and the fish were in recovery mode. Rather than muskie fish, which is all I would eventually do for 8 days the next week, I spent the remainder of my first week in pursuit of smallmouth bass.
It was a weird week of fishing. Not just the weather but in my overall lake selection. I fished the right places but they either weren’t fished properly or were totally off. I fished about 6 different lakes for bass and my action lakes all failed to kick out more than half a dozen fish each time out – average time spent on each waterbody was about 4 hours. It was miserable. Meanwhile my lakes that are better for trophies and few numbers were kicking out more numbers and few trophies. What the heck was going on?!?
I never found the bass on my action lakes, nor did I ever establish any patterns. But on my trophy lakes I did nail a few patterns which are predictable for this time of season; crankbaits and soft jerkbaits.
Tired of getting nearly blanked on my action lakes, I hit the trophy water. On 7/31 I fished two of my favorite lakes. Both are 1,000+ acres in size. On the first lake fished during the AM, a 4.75 inch soft jerkbait from Stankx Bait Company in a custom made “diablo” color fished weightless with a Lazer Trokar HD worm hook or on a Northland Slurp jig head for suspended bass fared well along with a Rapala Clackin Rap for the aggressive ones.
Meanwhile, another pattern which would eventually carry itself over, because it was so good, a full week later was the crankbait. This worked to perfection on the second lake fished. When I’m on a good crankbait bite like I was on this lake throughout this month, I usually employ three rods: One will be a slow gear ratio (Rapala DT 6); A second for power cranking – fast retrieve (Rapala Crankin Rap); A third for intermediate (Deeper diving DT 10). All three caught fish.
What I noticed was that during the daytime hours, fish were relating to rocks and wood; if there were fish cribs present they were a guarantee to hold a bass or two. Some fish were shallow, less than 5 ft, but majority were in the 8 to 15 ft levels traveling in their feeding wolfpacks in search of a crayfish meal. Then in evenings, it seemed as if most fish evacuated their traditional hard bottomed areas and were using large sand flats with scattered grass and patches of weedgrowth that were located out in the middle of nowhere, from spots I’d never expect to catch smallmouths from! In these strange locations, smallmouths were following the feeding habits of crayfish, as rusty crayfish are prevalent in destroying weeds. It made sense, as this sand and grass bite only took place during the sunrise and sunset hours when crayfish are most active in lowlight hours and nights. NOTE TO SELF – I think this could make for an interesting future article.
When smallmouths cough up crayfish during battle, nothing beats a crankbait which perfectly matches the hatch. Below are a few crankbait toads along with one of my largest of the year which I failed to measure. As far as its girth is concerned, it’s by far the fattest one I’ve caught this season. And one of the heaviest too (last photo).
As good as the topwater bite usually is for this time of the year, it blew me off and failed on me this month.
On Friday August 2nd I departed for the Northwest Angle on Lake of the Woods and fished muskies there for a week. On Saturday August 10th I returned back to Wisconsin to fish another week. Spoiled by unbelievably good muskie fishing, I wasn’t in the mood for a Wisconsin buzzkill of seeing few muskies, or dinks, and having to work hard for them. Out of boredom I did fish muskies for two days and all I could do was raise two little guys. How disappointing. So I resumed my trophy bass duties and got back to them right where I left off.
More crankbait fishing. . . . . . .
But before any of the good fishing took place again, my return trip was greeted by more coldfronts. At one of the lakes I did well on this spring (60 fish afternoon with lots of 16-18 inchers), I observed first hand how a coldfront negatively impacts the moods of bass. It’s not pretty. A typical outing here usually leads to 20-30 bass. On this day I only caught TWO! Not even could the noisiest rattlebait retrieved blazing fast with a 7.3:1 gear ratio reel could save my ass on this lake. To keep occupied I eventually worked a few fish cribs, jigging in over 15 ft of water for large schools of rock bass. Defeated by coldfront, my standards were severely lowered by this.
When the weather and fish recovered, I was back onto the great bite once again. Trophy waters continued to produce!
^^ What an 18 incher looks like from an infertile lake. Skinny and old.
The rest of these fish pictured were caught on 8/14. Other than finding the smallmouths stacked on the grass flats and feeding on crayfish from 7-8pm, action wasn’t consistent. I had to quietly work hard for my 25 fish afternoon. About 95% of them were caught on the crankbait. The rest were throwbacks with the soft jerkbait. I did some filming that evening and the corresponding video to a few of these fish is below.
As you can see with my well-defined raccoon eyes, I was catching these smallies well into the early nighttime hours. Had I braved the vicious mosquitoes, I would have been able to catch these guys even later in the evening, beyond 9pm. But after getting annihilated by skeeters, I had to retire for the day.
Not once have I been able to fish comfortably at night this year, because of those stupid state birds of Wisconsin! For this, I can’t wait for my fall season, which already begins next month. Speaking of fall, I have one last serious bass trip of the season scheduled for the second long weekend of September. Then after that through end of the year it’s all muskies for me and the occasional multi-species thing.
When Sunday the 18th came, it was time for me to return to Chicago. I didn’t want to leave, but such is life.
