Border Country fishing binge

[smarty140]

I made a return trip to Northern MN this weekend for a (very) long weekend of fishing and finishing moving... emptying out a storage garage in I'Falls and taking my boat back to WI with me.

I stopped on the way north on Saturday morning and fished a favorite spot. It was a bit out of the way but worth it... fishing was slower than I expected considering water level was great for this time of year (not too high). The smallmouth were not as aggressive as I expected but did get one very nice one:

The highlight of the day was landing the biggest pike I've gotten on a fly... only about 30" but a strong fish... lousy pic though since it really wanted to get back in the water!

I also managed one little walleye, which was a neat surprise:

Later that night, after getting to the family cabin, it was a nice night out in the Rainy River... no fish pics since it was all gear/bait fishing for that evening.

I spent yesterday out on a tributary river that I fished a lot last summer, mostly for pike. The pike weren't very cooperative yesterday, but once I figured them out the smallies sure were! I managed four in the 18-19" range, plus some LDRs and some smaller ones. I think these are fish that have migrated up from the Rainy since I didn't find nearly this many smallies in this section of river last summer.

Now it's off into Ontario to a lake for a few days with my parents and family friends... hopefully the the good fishing continues (and the weather gets better... lots of rain so far).

ryan


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[littledavid123]

A really good report, thank you for sharing!

Dave

 

[smarty140]

Came back across the border into MN today and had a good time fishing Ontario... well, at least yesterday and today. Monday was very windy so I didn't explore as much as I would have wanted. Tuesday was worse... made it out on the lake for a couple hours in the morning and a few more in the evening but didn't catch anything on flies. Some of the time I was fishing with my Dad in the boat, so stuck mostly to jigging for walleyes with spinning gear and bait - typical Ontario fishing. I did try a couple places with flies for smallies and had a couple strikes, but nothing that stayed on.
Yesterday was completely different - sunny and dry, but still fairly windy. It was good that this lake has tons of islands to hide behind. The smallies seemed to wake up after about 10am as the water warmed up a bit. I got 8-10 through the rest of the day,
most of the 16-18" plus a couple northerns. This morning was similar - nicer weather and cooperative fish - landed about 10 fish before having to quit about noon to pack up and head back to MN.
I didn't get many good pics, but here are a couple.

The water is really clear in this lake, so it was really neat seeing the fish take the fly when the strike was close enough to the boat to see.. strip, strip, tug and the fish is on!

ryan


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[smarty140]

Initial report for year 2 of this trip (well, year three, I guess but for year #1 I was living in the area so that doesn’t count...

Yesterday I fished a medium sized river, wading a section below a falls in the early afternoon, then lower in the river from my boat later in the day. It’s a beautiful Northern Minnesota river:

I got a few small northerns but the flow was higher and dirtier than I’d like, so the wade fishing wasn’t as much fun as normal.

Later, I got a few decent little northern from the boat, and one nice 18.5” smallie:

I also lost a couple others that were on long enough to get a good look at... big! I’m going to try to find them again tomorrow morning.

Today was more about hanging out around the cabin, cutting some wood, and relaxing a bit. I went out on the Rainy River for a few hours and only found one little smallie.

Tomorrow, after a quick stop trying to find those smallmouth that threw the hook yesterday and picking up a bit of gear and food in International Falls, it’s time to head across the border to head to a lake in Ontario for most of the week. Hopefully the big smallmouth are in a biting mood!

ryan


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[smarty140]

Finished up the fishing part of the trip this morning:

Monday (Memorial Day), I went back to where I had lost a couple nice smallies on Saturday, and had a bit better success landing them. The biggest was 19.25”:

Then it was on to International Falls, and across the border into Ontario. I met up with my parents on I’Falls, and we stopped and fished a section of Rainy Lake on the way to our final destination. I landed a few northerns and one nice smallie - after fishing tannin stained water the last couple days, it was great seeing the strikes in the clear water of this section of Rainy. When I got back to the landing, there was a fox running around the parking area and near shore - was really neat to see it up close, but not so neat later when I realized he/she was in the back of my truck while I was fishing and chewed into some of the food I brought! I figured broad daylight in the box of a full size truck was safe, but I guess not...
(don’t worry - the yellow in the water is just pine tree pollen, not pollution!)

Then it was in to the cabin we were staying at for most of the week. I got out in the evening to a few spots that produced last year, and wasn’t disappointed:

One highlight of this trip was getting into a bunch of smallies that were willing to eat poppers - I’ve never really had success with poppers until this week, maybe because I don’t try them enough, or maybe the sheer numbers of big smallmouth in this lake is the difference:

This fishing with top water flies was exciting enough that I got my mother to come out with me the next evening to try topwater baits - spin fishing gear instead of flies, but she got several nice fish and enjoyed seeing them strike on the surface. I managed a few casts with my fly rod while “guiding” and got a few more nice fish on poppers:

The weather wasn’t always nice:

The last day of the trip was trying to catch muskies on backcountry lakes in Voyageurs Nat’l Park - will put that in a different report. The short story is that the wind, rain, and fish won...

ryan



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[smarty140]

Ok, last stretch of the trip - a couple of backcountry lakes in Voyageurs National Park that have muskies, on opening weekend for musky fishing in MN. The Park only issues 1 permit/day for these lakes, so I had them to myself... unfortunately that didn’t result in gobs of fish caught!

The ride across the bigger lake to the trailhead was a bit sketchy in my 14’ boat with lots of wind:

On the bright side, I stopped off in a few sheltered bays and caught several nice little northern pike, which are always a good time.

Once you get to the trailhead, it’s about 2 miles hiking into the 1st lake, where you unlock a Park Service canoe to use on that lake. There were a couple piles of moose droppings in the trail, which is neat to see considering how MN’s moose population has plummeted over the past decade or so:

The lake is about 0.8 miles long, then you park the canoe and take a short trail to the second lake, which is the bigger of the two. When you unlock a massive rowboat - way too big for 1 person - and row to the campsite, which is probably about 0.5 miles... pretty short distance or really far, depending on which direction the wind is coming from! It’s a nice campsite with a good view of the lake.

Saturday morning, I broke camp early and went fishing in the rowboat by 7am. I had several follows from muskies and a couple strikes, but mostly it was a frustrating endeavor trying to get a couple casts in to likely looking spots before the strong wind blew me too far from shore. I basically worked the whole shoreline back to the trail, then parked the boat and hiked out to the first lake. With how windy it was, and using a canoe instead of a boat, I used my gear rod instead of the fly rod in this lake, with similar results - a few follows and strikes, but nothing landed. None of the fish I saw looked to be over 30”.

There was thunder starting by about 11 am, and the wind was getting even stronger, so I made my way back to the trail, locked up the canoe, and started the hike out to my boat. Midway through the hike it started raining, and by the time I got to my boat and started the 4-5 mile trip back to the landing it was raining really hard, which made for a miserable trip across the lake. I did stop in one bay and caught a 3-4# Northern on my fly rod, just so I wasn’t completely skunked for the day!

Overall, it was a fun adventure and I need to go back, preferably with better weather and a fishing partner - the rowboat would be a lot more fun with 1 person positioning the boat while the other casts.

I didn’t include the names of any of the lakes on purpose, but they aren’t much of a secret. If anyone is interested or is planning a trip to VNP, just shoot me a PM.

ryan

 

[mcnerney]

Ryan

Thanks for posting the trip report, it has been a fun read and I really enjoy seeing all those great photos!

 

[smarty140]

Thanks Larry... now it’s time to start anticipating my annual trip to Wyoming in Sept!
ryan

 

[lake flyer]

Great trip reports and photos! Smallmouth are just the best and you are releasing some real beauties. Also I really appreciate your handling of the fish and not levering on their lower jaw. Would like to see some of the flies you are using.

 

[smarty140]

Great trip reports and photos! Smallmouth are just the best and you are releasing some real beauties. Also I really appreciate your handling of the fish and not levering on their lower jaw. Would like to see some of the flies you are using.

Lake Flyer - thanks for your comments. I’ve never really seen the attraction to grabbing them by the mouth... my hands get beat up enough just removing flies, getting poked with dorsal fin spines, and generally interacting with a bunch of northern pike. I can’t claim though that the handling was perfect, though - some spent some time in the net on the floor of the boat trying to get hooks out, to getting measured before release, but all swam away strong (with the possible exception of one small pike that inhaled the fly way too far, but appeared like he was going to be ok)

I don’t have any pics of my flies. Most were flies I tied myself, so not perfect but good enough.

For topwater, there is one purchase popper in one of the fish pics, plus a couple frog-like poppers that I tied. Other favorites were Murdich Minnows in a couple colors, white Kiwi Muddlers, an articulated muddled type fly that isn’t a specific pattern but was effective, and of course Clousers in various colors and sizes.

Getting the depth right seemed to be the most important, along with speed of retrieve. Some areas held super aggressive fish that would chase down a popper from 10’ away, some would silk on the bottom and really have to be coaxed into biting... would imagine it was a water temp thing since there was a big spread depending on where I was in the lake or rivers.

For pike, I had a variety of bigger streamers, most with a bunny strip and deer hair head, but not real patterns... just stuff I tied because it seems like pike would like it. Unfortunately they also seemed to like a lot of the flies I was using for bass so I have to replenish some flies that were lost to the sharp teeth of pike...

ryan