Hello Folks!
The first week of September has been a beauty up here. The weather still feels a lot like summer, with temps being 20-25C and the water temps hovering in the high 60s / low 70s. This fall seems to be going faster than some, but I think it is simply due to the cooperative weather, good times, great guests, and of course, awesome fishing.
As with every fall up here, it is around this time that we start dividing our attention 3 ways. On any given day we usually have 3-4 boats walleye fishing, 2-3 boats pike fishing, and the other 2-3 guides working on the bear hunt. So our big fish numbers for the week may look shy but in reality they are decent considering the reduced number of boats out there slaying.
This week was great for walleye fishing, and the volume bite was especially excellent. We had 3 or 4 days with multiple guides having daily totals exceeding 60 walleye over 18 inches for the day. The highest daily total was 72. Overall our most successful depths and tactics stayed the same: 20-40 ft. jigging deep sand and rock. I had some success moving fast with bottom bouncers and spinners, and even some gulp, but overall moving slow and jigging pods of fish vertically seems most effective. For the week we saw 15 walleye over 27 inches, including 2 28 and 3 29s.
The pike fishing is starting to heat up as expected, although we are still waiting on those cold nights to really bring them into shallow, targetable water. For the week we saw 10 pike over 37 inches, with 2 40s and one 41. I am still running into A LOT of mid-30s pike down deep on the sand breaks while walleye fishing, so it feels like the majority of the larger pike are yet to arrive up shallow. It should just keep getting better from here on in.
From a personal perspective, I had some of my favourite guests up for a 5 day trip this week and they caught a total of 7 walleye 27 or better, with a 28.5 and 2 29s. That makes this week one of my best weeks of guiding this season for big fish. I am not saying that to “toot my own horn”, but to stress that there are lots of big fish yet to be caught out here this year. If you have never been up to see ‘The Wheel’ in all its fall glory, and the huge ‘eyes and pike feeding up for winter, there are a few gaps in our book for next year that have yet to be filled, so get on it!
I hope you all have a great week and check in next Saturday for our next fishing report.
Jesse Wright
Senior Guide, SWWL
