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Isle Royale/Canadian side report


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Spent a few days at Isle Royale recently. Can't believe how warm the water is up there! 64 degrees on the crossing and 75 in the back of the bays. This was a family trip but we still put in a good amount of time trolling from Rock Harbor around to Todd Harbor. As usual, the boat bristled with rods for the run across but we never really needed more than 4 lines at one time. Top producers for us were Lady Slippers in Scotch and Water and also the one with pink and yellow with black dots. We ran these 80'-90' down and 30' off the ball on the corners. They got bit like clockwork every time we came over the 100' shoals on the north end. We also did very well on a firetiger Needlenose run high in water column. It accounted for fewer but typically bigger fish. We headed back across to the mainland a little early due to rough weather forecasts. That gave us a little time on the Canadian side to fish a bit. We did well on kings up near Black Bay on mainly N2 size spoons in Blue Dolphin and an old green Northport with yellow tape. I got reports that there were guys catching kings up into the high 20s on the north side of Thunder Bay too! sure is nice to be able to run two lines up there now instead of just one per person. One line seems so insignificant the big lake.

Anybody ever run the Lady Slipper spoons? I'm just starting to give them a run but they've been great so far. I wonder if their "smelt-like" shape will trigger lakers on Superior better than traditional spoon blanks? They sure were the ticket at the Island. Haven't had a chance to run them out of the Twin Ports just yet.

Lota Lota...

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Lota..Nice report. Sounds like you had a great time and some good action. I haven't been to the island for a few years now but always enjoyed that trip. I saw a report on GLA regarding the recent Thunder Bay tourney, and they reported both large numbers of kings as well good size fish. Makes me wonder if there is a larger population of the salmonoids further north on the canadian side of the lake. I haven't personally ever fished the big lake on the canadian side.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

lota, thanks for the report. I miss not having the big boat..sometimes.

Haven't tried the Lady Slipper spoons.

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