Instead of spending our usual week up on the Gunflint Trail, we decided to do two four-day weekends this year. The first was on July 4th and our second was this past weekend. We drove up late Friday night, but I was too tired to get up Saturday morning to go fishing. Because we visited the Fisherman’s Picnic in Grand Marais, I didn’t get to wet a line until 4pm. It’s a crime, I know.
While the family was swimming, I decided to trek over to the neighbor’s dock where there are some reeds. I threw a scum frog for about an hour and a half (between watching and taking videos of kids being pulled on a tube behind a pontoon) and got a bunch of bites, but I wasn’t able to hook into any of them.
After setting down and eating dinner, I went out on the pontoon with Ken and George. We took off for Walleye Alley and started about mid-way down the shore so we could head West to the bay I had success in on July 4th weekend.
Ken was the first to score on a pinkish fluke. It was a little smallie about 11″ long. George got hit next by another small smallie, but couldn’t land it. He was using a speed craw-like plastic.
I finally got my hit when we neared the Meeds Lake portage. I felt a tick and because I had my polarized Fitovers on, I watched as my bubble gum fluke disappeared into a fishes mouth. I set the hook and the fight was on! I pulled up a 25″ Northern.
Species: Northern Pike
Size: 25″
Lure used: Bubble gum super fluke
A little past the portage, I would land a 9″ smallie.
We rounded the corner to cast into the bay and a cast toward the South shore would yield me another small Northern. A few years ago, that one would have been too small for us to keep, but since we learned how to make pickled Northern, I take every Northern I can out of the lake. My theory is that they wreak havoc on the thousands of walleye fingerlings that get stocked in the lake each year. I’m happy to do my part for the the walleye population.
I switched to a scum frog to see if I could entice the topwater bite. It worked, but I missed all three hits on it. It’s a different type of scum frog than I’m used to and I apparently haven’t gotten the timing down on it yet. Three misses at the neighbor’s dock and three in the bay made for a frustrating afternoon and evening.
George got frustrated with the speed craw getting snagged on logs, so he switched to a floating square lipped Rapala. It turned out to be a good decision because a fish hit it. When I went to get the net, I was surprised to see a flash of white on the tail during the fight. It was a walleye! And a nice one at that. We measured it at 17″. I would have gladly traded in my two Northern for that beautiful fish.
As darkness crept in, we went back toward the portage. I threw a few casts with a jig and pig and a wacky rigged worm, but nothing else bit before the skeeters were getting too much.
It was a good start to the weekend, and it was only going to get better.
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