This week’s weather was a little atypical for the middle of September here. Temps were steadily cool, and just like most fall weeks, we had a bit of everything else – sun, clouds, rain, fog, and mist. But we went almost all week without any heavy wind days. The calm or light wind weather was conducive to pike fishing and a lot of our guests took advantage of that this week.
We had a total of 36 guided days on the water this week, about average for us this time of year. Out of those 36 about half were days where the boat’s main focus was chasing big pike. Those 18 guided days concentrated on pike did produce some good fish, but getting to those fish often took devoting a good portion of your day to casting. Those boats that kept the faith and spent the time required regularly caught northerns in the low and mid-thirties, and boated 13 northern over 37 inches including two over 39 inches, two over 40 inches, and a 41 incher. When our guides compared notes at the end of each day we usually weren’t able to see one pattern or bait that was the answer that day, but looking back over the week half of the fish over 37 inches came on big spinner baits.
Our walleye this week were once again caught on rock structures – either open water underwater piles or main lake island points. The general trend was for the fish to be deep on these structures, but as the week progressed we found a couple of good bites in shallower water, tight to shore or up on top of the rock piles in just 10-15 feet of water. The walleye were not aggressive and we often had to experiment with different presentations at each spot to produce fish, jigs and minnows remained the most effective way we found to do this. We continued to check the sand structures that have been so good to us in the past but the walleye were not there this week, instead our guides shifted their focus to some of our favourite fall transition spots and we began to find good fish at them. Out of 36 guided days this week, only about half were dedicated to pursuing big walleye and our numbers for the week reflect that – we caught and released 15 walleye over 27 inches, with two over 28 inches.
Our guides fish hard all week and all season, and they always like to see something new or unusual. For our guides, the most unusual thing this week was a Musky. With all our boats on the water fishing all day every day, this central section of Lac Seul – the part that we regularly fish – only produces about one Musky for us every two years. There was a good one caught this week, our first of the year and the biggest we’ve seen come out of our section of the lake, at 41.75 inches.
Brett McCallum
At Silver Water Wheel Lodge
