Sawbill Trail Fishing Reports/Info

[STMA_I_HUNTER]

Heading up to camp and fish with my son this weekend and looking for some reports or info, anybody willing to help/share?

[Poacher's pariah]

Where are you planning on going, and how? The BWCA via canoe? Or outside the Bdub with a boat and motor?

[STMA_I_HUNTER]

We are planning on going with boat/motor (small 14ft).

It's been 15 years since I have been up there and the last time I fished Crescent.

[Poacher's pariah]

I wouldn't limit myself to just Crescent lake. there are a number of very good lakes to the west, namely Fourmile, Toohey, Windy, Whitefish(carry-down), Wilson, Silver Island, and Harriet. You'd be surprised to find how little pressure some of these lakes get. We've been very successful jigging with twisters and grubs without any bait at all. Color seems to be more important than bait. finding the right color for the day is where the challenge is.

[STMA_I_HUNTER]

How about smallie lakes, or are they mainly walleye waters?

I was thinking of trying Crescent, but was told about Fourmile and Wilson but not any reports only "oh I've fished there before"

Minnow's, leeches, crawler or gulp (or bring them all)

[Poacher's pariah]

"Minnow's, leeches, crawler or gulp (or bring them all)" If you've got room, it never hurts to have stuff available, but we didn't keep a single walleye caught on bait, or even catch a keeper on it. As far as smallmouths go, Crooked lake has a pretty decent population, but they tend to run on the small side with a majority of them < 12". The other lakes are primarily walleye/pike/crappie lakes. Fourmile can be very good in the AM, and there is a 7 unit USFS campground + 3 water-access only campsites available.

[reinhard1]

poachers pariah gave some good advice. i have fished the lakes he has mentioned. now sometimes its hard to get updated info on some of the lesser known lakes. usualy its the popular lakes that get mentioned. so if you haven't fished some of these lakes, even discriptions of the lake, clarity, and fish content and experience in the past is helpfull. whitefish has an excelent walley population and so has windy. windy has a lof of rocks and boulders so be carefull and has stained water. wilson also has boulders and reefs and also has fast dropping shorelines in spots. the water there is clear so you have to fish it accordingly. wilson and harriet have rustic campgrounds on them. you can also camp on ninemile lake. crooket lake has excelent smallie fishing along with walleys and has a small resort. but if your not going to go in this area i would fish crecent where you were last time. things realy haven't changed much on the formentioned lakes so have fun and enjoy the area. i would use the plastics metioned by pochers post and bring crawlers and some leaches. good luck.

[HookEmHard84]

I'm headed up to this area over labor day. We are camping in the Crescent Lake campground. Anybody know how busy Crescent gets over the Holiday weekend? This is more of a relaxing trip with the wife, so we arent really planning on venturing off Crescent, but we aslo arent there to play get buzzed by speed boats or play bumper boats with 20 other fishermen. Will it be busy enough to warrant planning a day trip to one of the less popular lakes for some added peace and quiet?

I'm not a Musky fisherman at all, but I saw that Crescent has a population reported. Is there a chance we will get to see one of our wallys get t-boned, or is the Musky population just a myth.

Thanks

[reinhard1]

i dont know about how busy crescent will be on holidays but i would not be buzzing around that lake with its stained water and possible boulders here and there. the muskies in that lake are of a strain [i forgot the name] that dont grow very large. they haven't stocked them in that lake for some time but could have some natural reproduction. i haven't been there for three years and that was only a long weekend in the fall. walleys and smallies were were always a good bet. the lakes i and the other poster mentioned above are good lakes if you want to travel for a day. plus bonus trout lakes you can fish off shore. you and your wife on the shore with blown up crawlers on a lindy rig sitting on a chair what could be better. maby eating them in the evening. good luck.

[H2O Milfoil]

Hey HookEm:

I fished Crescent last Labor Day weekend and the campground was full, the lake wasn't too crowded (except for the boatload of young drunks who crowded me), and the fishing was good. I'll be up this Labor Day again, site #12, stop by and say hi and I'll share whatever info I can.

I was on Crescent over Memorial Day this year. Walleye, sm bass and muskie were biting, even though the weather wasn't the best. The muskies are the Shoepac strain and all we got were 30 inchers, certainly not trophies or even legal keepers. Fun on 4 pound line, though.

I might haul the boat to some other area lakes to check 'em out, but Crescent usually keeps me satisfied. Plus, I like having my boat in the water at my campsite.

Like most lakes in the area, you need to keep your eye on the rocks...the humps pop up suddenly and some are very shallow. Definitely not wise to be speeding around joyriding. If you've got a sonar/GPS, drop a lot of waypoints or trails so you can find your way safely back to land after dark. And you might want to plan on fishing at twilight and after dark.

[STMA_I_HUNTER]

Thanks for the input, I know my son and I will have fun whether we catch fish or not.....it will be a good break from summer baseball/hockey!

[H2O Milfoil]

Hi STMA_I_HUNTER,

If you are at Crescent CG, look me up. I'll be in #12. Swap fishing reports, etc. The folks in the CG are always pretty cool. We can all use some good fishing info, especially from the other area lakes. Plus, I have a lot of data on my GPS I can share. Bring leeches, maybe minnies too. I do well on floating jig heads.

[JBMasterAngler]

Personally I think the bass fishing on crescent has gone a little down hill in the past few years. Still lot's of walleyes and muskies in there though. I think your more likely to catch a muskie while walleye fishing than having the 'ski grabbing your walleye. Another option is homer lake. There is a pretty good pike and bass population in there, and supposedly it's a good walleye lake.

[HookEmHard84]

H2O Milfoil - That’s awesome you will be up there for Labor Day, good to know a fellow FMer will be there! I will make sure to come over and say hi, hopefully we can trade stories over a cold one and a fish fry! I can’t remember right now which site we reserved, I’ll ask the Mrs.

Thanks to everyone else for the info

[mrklean]

hey guys ill be up there to i think were on #16 my dad and i are bear hunting but were bringing the boat to waste some time up there to. ill be getting in late thursday night my pops will be there tomorrow i think

[H2O Milfoil]

I figure on getting up there Friday afternoon in time to get set up and do some fishing Friday evening. Looks like we're in for a cool down. Weekend temps forecast for mid-60's days and low to mid-40's nights. Should be very comfortable.

[art321]

I didn't think you could reserve FS campsites. Always thought it was first come first served. Did that change? How did you guys manage.

[Hooliganz]

ya pretty sure 1st. come 1st serve on the rustic forest camp sites. and cannot stay longer than 14days or park car on them till your friend comes up with the camper I wish that people would not give out these lake names on here.

[mrklean]

were saying at Crescent lake campground and you need to reserve them ahead of time, when i booked the other day the entire campground was almost full for the holiday weekend. Rustic ones it is first come, we stayed on trout lake few years ago and thats what those are.

[art321]

OK, so again, how do you go about reserving a site. As I said, always thought it was first come first served at FS campgrounds. Very interesting to find out otherwise.

[mrklean]

sawbill outfitters website has a link to where you can book it its a govt website i think dont remember but go to sawbill outfitters website and you should be able to go from there

[art321]

Thanks Mrklean. I'll have to look into that. Could be helpful for many of the other campgrounds I like to go to.

[H2O Milfoil]

I figure on getting up there Friday afternoon in time to get set up and do some fishing Friday evening. Looks like we're in for a cool down. Weekend temps forecast for mid-60's days and low to mid-40's nights. Should be very comfortable.

The weather forecast was close...windy, cool, no rain until Tuesday. Temps in the upper 50's/nighttime upper 30's. Good campfire weather. Didn't get up there early enough on Friday to fish...didn't even launch the boat, way too windy. Nasty winds through Saturday. Spent Saturday driving to a number of area lakes, checking out the ramps and wind conditions. Went back to the camp on Crescent and by late afternoon it actually flattened out enough to go out fishing.

Fishing was very good. Lots of SM bass, quite a few in the 12 - 14 inch range, good scrappers. And a fair number of walleyes. We caught fish on leeches and minnows. Got enough walleyes to take home for a few in the freezer. Hit a spot at sunset where we were getting walleyes on 2 casts out of 3. The muskies were nuts, our best baits were little smallies that we were cranking in. Had a nice one Saturday night, totally shredded a smallie, never got to see it but it made 4 nice drag screaming runs. Sunday again lots of smallies, some nice walleyes, and a couple more muskie encounters. One we got in the net because it was too stubborn to let go of the smallie. Got some pics of that. Oh, and the muskies were doing the "hand off the bass to me so I can have some fun too"...yeah, there were two of them next to the boat tag-teaming that poor little bass! Very cool! Another muskie was too small to grab the bigger bass I cranked in. He followed that fish turn after turn, mouth open, but never grabbed it. Very cool seeing it come up, mouth open like a shark attack, but then turn away time after time.

Note to the muskie guys: these are shoepac strain muskies, kinda small. 30 to 36 inches. I saw a few casters chugging big baits, didn't see them get any.

The highlight of the weekend was meeting a fellow FM'er who was camped right across from my campsite. J and J and their "baby boy" Wally were great company, we shared fishing information and even a good dinner. I look forward to meeting them again.

It was a great Labor Day weekend, I was fortunate to have a couple of good buddies join me. And of course, the FM folks from across the road I met capped off a very nice weekend. I'll let them post their observations but we all seemed in good spirits as we were breaking down wet camping gear and bailing out our boats Tuesday morning.

There were at least 3 campsites still open all weekend long, and I only walked half the campground.

Finally they opened the Lester River bridge (still working on it though) and as I drove through Tuesday afternoon I noticed 6 -8 fishermen and two of them had fish on. Anyone care to post what was happening? Loopers, coho, kings??

[HookEmHard84]

Gosh, REALLY late response here, but H20's report was spot on! We had a great time at Crescent over labor day!

H20Milfoil - Hopefully you see this. I have been meaning to send you an e-mail for quite a while now, but I must have lost your e-mail address (think it might have been in my rain coat pocket and got totally soaked to the point of not readable). Anyways, finally figured out I could probly get it from you on here. What is you e-mail address again, Is it AOL or hotmail?

[austin123456]

Does anyone have any tips or spots what works well on crescent or any lakes that connect I will be up there in the near future for a fishing trip. 

[monstermoose78]

The windy side of the lake

[austin123456]

Just got back from a camping trip on the Sawbill Trail we stayed at Crescent Lake windy conditions made it a bit challenging in a canoe but we did fine over all boulder lake (connected to crescent was better but not great I caught two 14-15 chunky smallies some smaller pike one good eaters in the 5 pound range crescent we caught probably 100 8-10 inch bass and none of any size no walleyes also stopped at sawbill and took the portage in to alton we only caught two pike in my experience late summer can be pretty hard up north to find fish of size and walleyes the people we talked to seemed to overall have the same report for the bass any drop off or island point seemed to hold fish trees worked pretty good to a orange hair jig or a slip bobber with a leech worked good.

[monstermoose78]

It’s chilly up here this morning. I have Been walking trails with the dog and have struggled the see a grouse. I was just checking to see if  will be coming up grouse hunting. The answer is no but the walleyes were snapping on devilstrack just not very big. In the last 6 days Finn flushed 2 ruffled grouse and 1 male spruce grouse. We put miles on trails walking. At the cabin we went to check out the trail cameras and Finn did flush 5 grouse by my deer stand. Very few deer and lots of wolves.