Field Notes

April 29, 2009

Well, the lakes are breaking up, the steelhead are running, my boats are set up for summer with oil changes and the like.....so we are ready for our opener. Steelhead have been fickle for me this year, and loopers are hard to find near the Duluth rivers. I will post several pictures of my 2009 chrome torpedos in the next week or so.....right now I want the water to warm up so I can wack some bluegills with the 3 WT rods. Come on sunshine!!!!

March 30, 2009

March was a month to fix motors, prepare for future trips, look at maps for ideas of summer, and order new fishing and camping gear. I am eagerly awaiting the steelhead run along the North shore of Lake Superior. See what happens this year....best darn invasive species the great lakes ever got!! I have also tied several new bass flies for this summer. Dates for fishing and camping this summer are filling fast, give us a call.

February 28, 2009

We went on a scouting trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua this past February. We were trying to determine if snook, bonefish and tarpon were viable on the Corn Islands of Nicaragua, check in on the rainbow bass, mojarra, and guapote in the largest freshwater lake in Central America, Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua), and some roosterfish or sailfish action on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Well, very heavy winds (like 60 mph straight line winds!) kept us from fishing at all in ten days of travel in Nicaragua. No fishing on Corn Islands, no fishing the big lake either! Oh well, that’s the way traveling and fishing go together sometimes! I did get out from shore along the Oso Peninsula of Costa Rica and caught several small jacks. They would have been much more sporting on a 5 wt., but I only had 8 wt and 10 wt with me! Next time, I’ll bring my 5 wt stick! We went on a half-day junket for sailfish on conventional tackle out of the lovely Crocodile Bay Resort in Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica. Excellent people, gear, boats, and staff. Well worth the time and money to fish with these folks. Speaking of next time, we are heading to a pilot canoe/kayak trip down the famed Rio San Juan, the border water between Nicaragua and Costa Rica next winter; give us a call if you want to join in on an adventure. This will be limited to 3 people and it will be jungle camping and eating, and lots of stained croc infested waters to test your jungle fishing abilities. Remember, this is exploratory fishing, sans lodge and guides, total DIY. Once we dial it in, we may be offering it for fee and could guarantee you a bit more.

July 30, 2008

July temps seem normal enough, but the fish are still fairly shallow (smallmouth, northern pike) and the walleye relate to currents, underwater springs, or reefs and points. Most walleyes are coming from fairly deep water on overcast days, very early mornings, or late evening nighttime.

I have found bass on area lakes each weekend, but it shuts off at 10am and you have to either switch to panfishing or hang it up for the day. We went to Salo, Dumbell, Harriet, Dam 5 and Wilson in search of Northerns and smallies on the fly rod. White Dahlberg Divers work well or real bleached out chartreuse colors. Either clousers, dahlbergs, or any minnow imitation in chartreuse or white seems to be the ticket.

I took Bill out from Arizona, he is a school teacher. We had a crummy day and salvaged it at the bell with a very respectable northern pike. I bet it rained on us five times, and the sun came out five times all in an 8-hour day! We tried trolling, jigging, slip bobber, the works….to NO avail. Finally at 4pm, after a full day we hit two nice fish (a 19" walleye and a 27" Northern) at the narrows between the big island and the small island. Nice fish Bill, see you next year and bring along that nice Arizona weather!

On Wednesday July 16 I picked up Luci and Jerry from Florida and Al from Guadalupe, Mexico by way of Canada and England at the hotel at the Duluth airport. They were set for a two week hiking trip along the Superior Hiking Trail and I was set to take them shopping for food and drop them off at the trailhead. Went did our chores and three hours later they were off along the trail heading North out of Castle Danger. They had hiked many of the famous trails, like the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and others throughout the United states and other parts of the globe and I was interested in learning what they thought of the Superior Hiking Trail. As a fishing guide that is not all that into hiking, I Am always hungry to learn so I can share with shuttle clients!

I went on a float trip along the Cloquet River, one day 12 miles, as a check out for a future offering here at the guide service, but this one was just me. I only landed three small bass in 10 plus miles of paddling. Not great, nice day though! I wanted to go this time of year because I really think there is good fishing in spring, but never knew about low water time. Now I know!

I picked up the hiking gang and gave them a ride back to the hotel by the Duluth airport. They had a blast! They said it ranked right up there with the other top trails in the country. They met great people that shuttled them to markets and hotels, they had a wonderful time. That was really great to hear and made me proud to be a resident of the north shore! Hats off the volunteers who spend hundreds of hours on the trial doing maintenance work each year!

June 30, 2008

June becomes the busy time for me so you will see less posting and I'll be doing more fishing! After all, I like the fishing part, not the Web manager part.

The month started off very wet as it rained the first 12 days of the month. This kept water temperatures very low through most of the month and gave us spring-like conditions for most of the month. Bass, both smallmouth and largemouth, were shallow and could be had most of the month on chartreuse deer-hair Dahlberg diver bugs, and Clouser minnows in the same color. We had great luck on clear crease flies as well. Northern Pike were an easy target in the warmer shallow water as well. They were whacking top water most of early June right along with the bass. For those of you in the hardware crowd, we threw bent shaft spinners in chartreuse, yellow, and white with great luck. Also, the gold/white floating Rapala worked great. Walleye stayed in the current areas and were had on jigs and minnows. We used the banana yellow ¼ oz. jig most of the month. Evening brought us to slip bobbers.

June 22, 2008

I was joined by brothers Paul and Joe, from Richfield, MN and New York City, NY respectively, after they ran Grandmas Marathon today. We set out late because the guys needed a bit of rest after all that running. We fished a small lake near Two Harbors for walleye, northern pike. A great time was had by all, with a few pike, nothing huge, but some fun 4-5 pounders. It was a day full of small rain squalls as we got rained on and dried out 4 times!

June 11, 2008

My brother Kevin, friend Mike from Philadelphia, PA, and another friend, Jim, from Fair Hill, MD, came up for their first BWCA trip in early June. Our target was smallmouth on the fly rods of big old Lac La Croix. This huge international boundary lake sprawls along the Minnesota-Ontario border for over 15 miles NW of Duluth three hours. I picked all up at MSP airport Monday and we went to my place to pack for an early morning departure. Our goal was to make it all the way to La Croix by dark and set up a base camp for two nights and hit the shallow rocky shorelines hard. Check out the pictographs and share some lies around the fire. We got in the water by 11am and made it to our destination by 5:30 pm, only to find the first 17 campsites FULL! Never, in all my guiding has that happened. We ended up discussing an illegal squat in the bush as dark settled in and finally found a site about 3 miles further up the lake than we wanted to be. A small exposed site, but we were tired made do and called it a night.

As we rose to heavy South wind we worked the sheltered side of islands and bays. Mike hooked a dandy 16” on his 5 WT on a chartreuse deceiver. That started the contest of the trip. By the way that remained the big fish of the trip, bass wise. Not the greatest, but fun. That was followed by several 12-14” specimens, but none topped Mike’s hog on the 5 WT. Jimmy started is off with Northerns hooking into several in the 20-24” range. Fun was had by all, but we were really limited due to wind.

The next day brought more wind and stronger! We made do and caught several small fish in between campsite snacking. We determined that we were going to go to Nina Moose lake, not far (4 miles) from the car cause the last day we would have to take out and haul ass to the airport to get all on their flights.

The last day we made our way to Nina Moose, still very windy. As we arrived at Nina Moose and it laid down nice for a sunny 70 degree evening and no wind. WE swam in the lake, check that, Jimmy swam in the lake Kevin, Mike and I watched! Then we all went fishing the shoreline for pike and bass. We caught several nice pike, nothing large. A great evening.

We awoke to a mad dash to the cities to get Jim on the first flight 45 minutes before it left, followed by Kevin, only to have Mike’s flight to Philadelphia delayed a day! Great time had by all, not that great of fishing, but just the type of introduction these guys need for a longer better trip in the future!

May 31, 2008

Went over to the Brimson area today to fly fish for bass and Northern pike. This lake has both largemouth and smallmouth, so I was excited for whatever took the fly! Working shallow cover by creek mouths I landed several nice smallies in the 15 to 18 inch range, a 17 inch largemouth and four or five Northern Pike between 10 and 23 inches. Great day! Chartruese/white Decievers and Clousers did the trick and top water action was to be had on the Gremlin Dahlberg Diver tied by John Fehnel at Great Lakes Fly Company of Duluth, Minnesota. Good fun for three or four hours.

May 23, 2008

Off to Crane Lake today and Voyageurs National Park for Memorial Day weekend. We took off at 12pm from the Crane Lake boat ramp and made our way 10 or so miles north to the north end of Sand Point Lake to make camp on one of our favorite islands east of Namakan narrows.

Water levels were very high but temps were perfect at 60-63 degrees in the main lake basins. We found strong current in the narrows and plenty of fish. Northern pike and walleyes were ready to take our jigs with minnows. We really had to watch close as the international border goes through the narrows, and without a Canadian license we did not want to stray out of the country.

After several great morning and afternoon fishing sessions for walleye, we decided to try fly fishing for bass and northern pike one afternoon. We made our way Grassy Bay where we found shallow water temps in the high 60’s and an occasional 71 degrees! I threw my arm out in 4 hours of casting with several different flies to no avail! Maybe next time.

Monday morning we worked our way back to the boat ramp to load up for the three hour ride home.

May 16, 2008

We decided to go to Fish Lake today. It was very cold, water temps were 55-59 degrees depending where you are on the lake and it was very windy as well. We arrived at 6am and fished hard until 12pm. We caught one nice 18 inch walleye. That is it! Next time.

May 15, 2008

We took off from Round Lake at 12pm to see how far we could go towards our favorite lake trout lakes. With the late ice we were not sure where we would end up, but we knew that we could get to Gillis Lake, but would that be frozen?

At the days end Gillis was frozen and we decided to stay nearby and wait out the ice. We fished the opener and several days after and had a great time boating more than 15 lake trout each. Amy caught the big one a whopping 29 inch fish, from shore!!

We did have one or two crazy experiences when we were on the trip. The first occurred when both Amy and I were fishing from shore and she decided to start dinner. So while she walked away for 5 minutes to boil water, I was in charge of watching the rods. I went to the bathroom and when I returned, her rod was gone! I quickly went to the canoe, tied a huge spoon to my rod, and paddled out to the front of the shoreline location where we were fishing. Peering into the water with my sun glasses, I saw a bit of silver shimmering. I drug the spoon around the area of about ten or fifteen tries. Finally, I snagged her line. Worked it up to the boat and slowly hand over hand got the rod. Once in my hand, I noticed it was heavy! Only then did I realize that there was a 25 inch laker still on the line! Note to self, NEVER leave the rods unattended.

The other crazy thing was we received about four inches of snow on Monday morning when we awoke. Not all that uncommon, since the lake next to us was white and frozen, but still a late winter landscape.

Ice out on Gillis was Monday afternoon!

May 7, 2008

WHAHOOOOO!!! The lakes are breaking up! Our trip is on as our entry point lake ice disappeared today! Now as we work our way West from the Gunflint we will have several, like four, lakes which are fairly small and should be open like our entry point lake. Then we come to a large lake which is most likely still frozen, but maybe we will be able to paddle around the edges and dodge the pack ice?? But, time will tell. Either way, lake trout fishing is going to be AWESOME!! I am bringing my 8 WT fly rod and my spinner, plus many home-made flies which I tied this winter....

May 5, 2008

Monday AM phone call up the Gunflint reveals most all lakes frozen, some with as much as 6 inches of ice! I am getting nervous for the first time in 10 years of iced lakes in my typical canoe trip for opening weekend lake trout. Sun, rain please....

May 2, 2008

I got all the outboards running today, the 3, 10, and 50 hp. We ran the Lund Mr. Pike on the hose for a bit put some treated fuel through and changed the plugs and lower unit grease. Amy washed down the boat and vacuumed throughout. We went through all the spin fishing gear and transferred all tackle out of the winter backpack and into the summer boat bags. I washed all my fly lines and lubed them. Oh, just thought of a task I had not noted: trailer lights? Gotta check them. I hear steelhead are jumpin in the local rivers, but I have to prep for open water and lake trout! Friends caught several nice males and females, both fresh from the big lake and spawned out adults going back down to the lake, deed completed! Oregon cheese, steelhead orange/red, orange glo-bugs or egg flies, 14 bead headed stoneflies with rubber legs……..CHROME!!

April 28, 2008

Well, the big blow was not as big as predicted. It was yucky Friday, Saturday, and Sunday but not as bad as predicted. Water flows were fairly tame and the temps are about 40.

I am getting ready for the opener with a Lake Trout trip with Amy up West of the Gunflint Trail, right in the middle of the Cavity Lake fire! Should be an interesting trip as we have been on this trip many many times, but this will be our first since the big fire last year. Ice may be an issue as the cold winter and spring will delay ice out. This will put the lakers shallow for the opener, if the ice goes out to let us in there!

Boat maintenance was on tap for the weekend as I put new skid plates on the Dagger canoe and worked a bit on putting away the ice fishing gear and going through the open water gear.

Perhaps I will get out this week and try for the old chrome before the lake season really is here and I forget all about the steelhead.

April 23, 2008

Snuck out after dinner tonight to beat the predicted 4 DAYS of rain, flash flood warnings, and SNOW and see if there are any fresh fish in the rivers. It was 58 degrees, sunny and the water was fairly cloudy, 39 degrees. Started out fairly slow at 6pm and about an hour later I had several hits, a lost fish and then a nice 24 inch fresh male. Spunky, ran all the way back to Lake Superior and ran around a bit in the surf, two or three jumps clear out of the water, then slowly toward me. Went right through my legs! After several seconds of chaos, fairly wrapped up in my line and feeling like it has been lost , I straightened out the situation and then had him whipped in my hand. Total fight time had to be 10-15 minutes and felt like and hour. Wow! Well, I hope it pours rain and bring in more fresh spunky chrome!!

April 22, 2008

Earth Day seems like a good day to update everyone on our bird migration. I have been seeing many changes in the bird landscape for the past couple of weeks. I was greeted on my morning walk by a passing Sandhill Crane, flying high above the trees with that call of theirs that you will never forget once you hear it. In addition I am seeing Yellow-shafted Flicker (or Northern Flicker, yellow phase, to those that learned it that way), Fox Sparrow, Junco, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Great Blue Heron, American Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, American Woodcock, and one of the Yellowlegs (not sure if it was greater or lesser).

As always, check the Minnesota Ornithological Union’s bird hotline if you want the very latest info.

April 21, 2008

With a front approaching, I thought it would be a good evening to try for steelhead. I put in 2 hours on a local Two Harbors river yesterday evening. To no avail, although I rolled two! I think we need rain and that will bring in a batch of fresh fish, these are too smart now!

April 20, 2008

A nice 26 incher from a local river. This was on a size 8 chartreuse egg with a apricot center. The water has been dropping a bit, but it is still 36 degrees.

April 20, 2008

Here is a nice 19 incher from this morning. It was misty, windy, foggy and 39 degrees this morning on the river near the big lake. I caught this fish about 50 yards from Lake Superior, fresh heading upstream. Interesting it hit on one of the egg patterns that I tied on those fancy (and expensive) orange hooks.

April 20, 2008

One more shot of chrome!

April 18, 2008

The Steelhead are in! Rivers between Lester and Stewart are are flowing at 36-38 degrees and the fish are there. A bit cloudy and high still, as the water drops the fishing should only improve. I have been using a chartreuse eggs with apricot spot, or all chartreuse on a size 6 or 8 hook. As the water warms to the 40 degree mark we can switch to stoneflies and x-legs. I foul-hooked a monster this morning and fought it for at least 15 minutes before it broke free.

The inland lakes are frozen up pretty good still, we went and checked Stewart Lake yesterday and there is still fishable ice! We did not drill a hole, but I bet it is 12” plus and not receding from the shoreline at all yet!

April 8, 2008

Most of the streams in the Duluth to Two Harbors corridor are starting to break-up and flow to the big lake! The Knife broke yesterday, Stewart is close, Sucker has some open water and ice, Lester is flowing. So get your yarn and have at the chrome rockets (steelhead) of the North shore while we have water!!

March 2, 2008

I wanted to give a quick bird report here. We still have common redpolls, blue jays, chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, white-breasted nuthatches, and a hairy woodpecker or two around the feeders at our house.

We are on the very northern fringe of the northern cardinal range here in Two Harbors. For the past three years we have been seeing males in the spring. Last year we had both the male and female in the spring and then never saw them again. This year we are seeing the male and female regularly at our feeders and we believe they are nesting nearby.

Friends have said the three-toed woodpeckers and black-backed woodpeckers are everywhere along the northern reaches of the Gunflint Trail, taking advantage of the burned trees from last years fire.

We should see more and more migrating birds in the next two months. Check out the Minnesota Ornithological Union’s North Shore/Duluth birding hotline for the latest update.

February 24, 2008

Decided to try Stewart Lake at the last minute today. Set up in 13 ft. by 3pm and sat till 6:30. Not even a bite. Panfish activity was busy but I wanted one more crack at the local walleye!

February 23, 2008

Since walleye and northern pike season is closing on inland waters soon, February 29, we decided to hit them one or two more times this weekend. Started out today going to Big V, Lake Vermillion, despite the sorry fishing reports I was getting. Went about 8 miles of McKinley Park off the north side of Ely Island and fished a steep bank reef in 30-24 ft of water. Kept one nice walleye for lunch. Awesome day, 30 and sunny, no wind.

February 17, 2008

Went up the Wanless Trail today in search of the designated trout lakes that dot this part of the forest. Set up in Hogback lake on about 15 ft of water. Fished till dark and no fish. SLOW going. Wanless Trail, or Forest Rd. 172, is the watershed divide between Husdson Bay and Atlantic Ocean, via St. Lawaernce Seaway and Lake Superior. I enjoy driving and thinking that the water on the north side of thew road flows to Canada and the water on the south side flows east to the mighty Atlantic.

February 9, 2008

Fished a local Two Harbors lake today and set up in 13 ft of water for the evening walleye bite. No bites, no fish. It is SLOW going in my nearby lakes....

February 3, 2008

Stayed overnight up in Grand Maris and returned to lake trout on this Super Bowl Sunday. We got set up early and fished 43 feet of water. Two jig poles and two tip ups. It was very slow today with 8 fish iced. We left at 2pm to get home to enjoy the game.

February 2, 2008

Went up to the Gunflint Trail today with Amy to fish for lake trout. We had a great day, or should I say she had a great day with 8 trout caught, including a nice 22 inch fish on the tip up.

Seems that the tip up has produced several of the larger fish this year, strange.

January 26, 2008

Today is the big Hartley Nature Center trip. Every year I donate a trip to the annual Hartley Nature Center fundraiser. Those of you that live in Northeastern Minnesota really need to visit the center. A great place for the whole family to have fun and learn about the environment. Give them a visit at Hartley Nature Center

Anyway, this year I was joined by Tom of Duluth, MN, Brian of Proctor, MN and Adam of White Bear Lake, MN. We met at the ramp at 8am and I had two ice houses set up and heaters going. We started where I left off the day before and we had a Laker on the ice within a half hour!

I had a great time with Tom, Brian, and Adam who are all knowledgable fisherman who like to have a laugh or two. We hooked over 30 trout, landed 21 fish, and they limited out with two nice fish each for the pan.

Thanks for the fun time guys!

January 25, 2008

Headed up the Gunflint Trail today to fish for Lake Trout in Trout Lake. Got set up by about 1:30pm in 48 ft of water. Spent an hour jigging a Cripple Herring with a minnow head, and a dead stick of a chub on the bottom. No bites. This is a great lake to fish as it also has Rainbow Trout, but it is NOT a classified by MN DNR as a designated stream trout lake. So, you get to use live bait and two rods. A little before 3pm I moved in a few feet to 42 ft of water. Bingo, from 3pm - 4pm I caught 7 Lake Trout and a nice 16" Rainbow Trout. I kept two Lakers (18 and 20 inches)for my limit and packed up for the day at 4:30pm.

January 18, 2008

Went to Hogback Lake today. Set up in 12 feet of water off the fishing pier, it was a balmy -5, with a 10-20 mph wind. Saw action on the Vexilar as soon as we drilled holes. We had a couple of missed fish for the first half hour and then it was dead till 3pm. Between 3-4 we landed 4 nice fish, rainbows and splake, in the 12 - 18 inch range.

January 12, 2008

Trout season is here. Went to Divide Lake for the opener. Got up there a bit late and did not get set up until about 9am. We set up in 12 feet of water off a point on the North shoreline. Fished till about 1:30pm. We had solid action for the first two and a half hours. Mostly right on the bottom. Caught several fish and kept three nice 12" fish for the frying pan. Amy lost the largest fish of the day at the hole and it easily could have gone 20"! We had luck using live wax worms in a small glow in the dark jig, maybe 1-64th oz. The larget for the three we kept was caught on those new colored waxies, red, from Al's Bait in Two Harbors.

December 31, 2007

Went all the way to Lake Osakis in the West part of the state for New Years to a good family friend's home, Lloyd Haggermann. Lloyd was a great host but, the walleye did not cooperate very well. We fished the North end of Osakis off Buck Point in 22-25 feet of water. Caught 1 keeper walleye, 16".

December 22, 2007

Went to Stewart Lake this afternoon to fish walleyes. Set up in 10 feet of water. Fished 3pm - 6:30 pm, one 16" walleye! That is it, no other bites....Slush was very bad with 10" ice under 8" of water and slush. Watch where you park the sled or wheeler as water comes up your holes the whole time your fishing.

December 1, 2007

Ice fishing has begun across the Northern Minnesota. With cold December temperatures we were set to have great ice this year for fishing and winter recreation, but we got dumped on with early snows of 16" and 10" across much of northeastern Minnesota. That means SLUSH. Many lakes have decent 6-8 inches of ice, some places more, some less, and a foot of wet slush under the surface of snow that coats many lakes. We went up to the Isabella area to fish for early walleyes in 8-12 feet of water. After a 1/4 mile snowshoe hike across the lake we set up for evening jigging. Two missed fish and a nice fire were all that we got on our first outing! Stay tuned, we are checking out other lakes next weekend!