Fishing Report August 2010
August 24-30, 2010 Voyagers National Park
We boated in about 25 miles and set up camp for a week of fishing the MN-Canada border waters, as I have been doing for many years now. The scenery is stunning, the wildlife is fascinating, and the fishing is almost always very good. This trip was no exception. We enjoyed dry weather, mild temperatures, and low winds which make for an easy wilderness trip. The walleyes were quite cooperative as were the bass, northern, and crappies. We fried up fish for lunch every day, released dozens of oversized walleyes and bass, and brought a few fish home for the freezer. If you have never been up to Voyagers Park, it is well worth the trip. I have traveled to all 50 states and through most of the provinces in Canada, and I find Voyagers Park to be my favorite. You can check out my photos in the Catch Photos section.
August 14-15, 2010
Not much has changed, as it was pretty much a mirror of last week's report with walleyes still easy to find and catch. Water temps have topped out at 75 degrees and will start cooling slowly over the next few weeks. I have noticed a more pronounced bite when we have a little wind, but we are catching fish even when the lake is flat calm. When you do have some wind, you will generally find the walleyes relating to the windward site of the reef or point or sunken island that you are fishing. We also started to catch some nice perch, mixed right in with the walleyes. These were keeper size perch in the 10-11 inch range, but no real monster perch.
Next week I am boating deep into Voyager's National Park along the Canadian border for an annual fishing / camping trip with a few close friends. The fishing up there is phenomenal this time of year with surface action for smallmouths topping the list. Last year I caught a 30 lb northern pike while casting a Zara Spook for smallmouth bass. The walleye and crappie fishing is always good so we make a big shore lunch of fried fish over the noon hour everyday. I will post photos of our border trip with my next Fishing Report update.
August 4-8, 2010
The words to the song "Summertime" go something like "Summertime, and the fishin' is easy", and this certainly is the case for Woman Lake right now. Limits of nice eating size walleyes were the norm last week and you could catch them right in the middle of the day under bright skies and on flat windless water. We found the walleyes to be scattered over most traditional main lake bars, reefs, and points, but easily seen on your depth finder and anxious to bite. We caught them on leeches using live bait rigs, but minnows or crawlers will work just as well. Most of the fish we caught were in the 17-19 foot depths, although we did find a few larger fish in the 22-23 foot range as well. Our biggest fish was a chunky 23 incher sporting a yellow DNR tag from the ongoing walleye study. We put her back. But we caught dozens of 13-17 inchers and we had to fry a few of those up for my all time favorite meal. While I love the typical deep fried walleye shore lunch, my wife has perfected a walleye recipe for sautéed walleye with almonds and blue cheese that is absolutely outstanding. She would be glad to share her recipe, if you are interested.
Check out the Catch Photos section for a sampling of what you can expect to find this time of year on Woman Lake. We also snuck up on a bald eagle nest along the shore and took a few photos of the three adult size chicks who were constantly chirping for Mom to go retrieve another fish dinner. I know of at least six active bald eagle nests on the lake, so it is pretty hard not to see the eagles when fishing. The abundant loon population even give you warning since they sound out their beautiful alarm calls every time an eagle flies nearby. I have heard good reports that crappies are active along the weedlines recently on many local lakes (including Child, Webb, Ten Mile), but I have not given it a try. Try fishing a fathead on a plain hook about 18 inches below a bobber, and cast it up along the edge and open pockets of big cabbage beds during the last hour of daylight. Good luck.