Fish Catching Travel
Crow Lake and Lake of the Woods
The plan for Wednesday was to catch a Lake Trout, something Jeff has done, but I had never done. It was one of my goals for the trip. I was surprised when Jeff was up before me, so we slid out and did a little fishing waiting for John and Clyde. We fished the cove where Muskie Bay is, and Jeff managed to catch a small muskie, our 5th, on a buzzbait, and I caught a nice pike on a spinnerbait.
About 8 we figured the guys were up, so we headed to the cabin. Clyde had been at the office talking to Paul, the owner, about catching a trout. Paul is the local expert on Lake Trout, and catches them year round. A portion of his business, Muskie Bay is open year round, is ice fishing for Lakers. And when you see some of the pictures on the wall, Paul obviously knows how to get it done.
He was kind enough to direct us to not only the basics, 65 foot deep, but to put us on the specific place. And then he actually gave us 3 lures to use. They were Sebile jigging baits, reminded me of the Old Gay Blades or a Sonar. So off on a long run to the Blackey Bay area.
When we got there we idled around looking for bait and fish. Paul said look for “Christmas trees” of bait on your graph. We putted around in 80 to 60 foot looking for bait and fish and finally found an area with lots of both. Jeff caught a small one and then about 10 minutes later caught this one..
8’13” of beautiful Lake Trout out of 65′ of water.
The wind was up, and it was making it a little hard to deep jig, so we slid across the way to another bank out of the wind, idled around, saw some more bait and fish, and bang, I had my first Lake Trout. As it was a goal for the trip, I have never caught one, it was cool.
8’15” of tasty table fare, my wife and I ate one filet off her last night.
We ended up fishing about another hour for trout. I know I missed another couple, and Jeff caught another small one. One thing I learned, next time it will be 8lb flurocarbon line, as Jeff had lighter line he definitely got more hits. And one thing to know if you ever think about going, Lake Trout spawn in the fall, and Paul says that is a great time to be there.
It was after noon now so we decided to fish that area for awhile, but we kept a sharp eye on the 2 trout in the well. Trout of all kinds, in all places, need to be either alive when cleaned or on ice immediately. Those 2 guys were swimming happily in the well so we fished a little.
The only thing of import that happened before we headed back to the resort to clean fish was we did raise a big muskie in the middle of the day. He followed Jeff’s buzzbait to the boat and he attempted to figure 8 him without any luck. I was throwing a jerk bait so I stuck the rod in the water and called her back up. She followed it for a while, then lost interest. After catching the first 2 by using the figure 8, I thought it was a slam dunk. Now I will probably never get another on that way. Clyde said he has been going there for over 20 years and has not caught one that way yet.
About 2 we decided to head back to the resort and clean them while they were still alive and kicking. After getting that done, it was off to Vic and Dot’s, the resort we put in at on Lake of the Woods, to give the grass beds a try. It was trying to storm, like it did every day we were there, so we sat at the ramp a while waiting for it to settle down enough to fish, which it did.
We started right past the ramp in a flooded grass field and for the next 2 hours caught pike on buzzbait. The fun thing about today was they wanted it fast, real fast, and they would absolutely smash it. We found a few in the grass, but ost were in the open water on the edges. I managed to get the best bite of the trip. Even though it was only about 8lbs. he literally exploded on it. What a bite.
So after being on the water for 14 hours we called it a day.
Hook Out.
I promised you the video of me taking the hook out of Clyde’s finger. Folks this method works. The hook pops out like a rocket.
Here is the short video of me taking that hook out of Clyde’s finger. What is not clear from the video is exactly how you do it. So what you do is make a loop out of line, place it on the bend of the hook, and then press down on the eye of the hook with your thumb. As you press down on the eye, and slightly toward the hole, it stretches the skin, and out it pops out when you jerk sharply on the loop. Now how well it works on huge hooks I do not know, but as you can see it popped right out. It was awesome, and saved a trip to the ER. Just be sure you have something to clean it up with and then cover to prevent infection. Your fishcatchingtravel tip of the day.
So again thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow’s post will include my biggest fish of the trip. It was an epic struggle and fulfilled one of my bucket list fish. So keep slinging.
Good Luck and Tight Lines.
Wasn’t sure when Jeff caught this one, but we probably caught about 50 of this size during the week.
