It was a rough week on Lac Seul. I have had shorelunch at the lodge the last 3 days in a row, we had 2 inches of rain on a blow out day mid week, another 1 inch of rain today, and the wind just switched again to the North and is howling as I write this at 10:30 PM. There were some good bites, but they happened when the wind and the rain were the strongest. When the lake settled down and was finally fishable, you marked more than 30 fish for every bite. Earlier in the week, before the rains really hit, there was a pretty good weed bite. While some of the guide boats were dragging slow hunting for a big fish in deep water, others actually found some big fish mixed in with the volume in front of the weeds in 10 – 18 ft. We again caught walleyes from 7 – 37 ft. and the bite was unpredictable at best. There were times that a fast presentation with spinners in deep water produced better than slow and there were days that you had to just drag a jig across the sand in front of the weeds to get a bite in shallow water. The only thing more frustrating than trying to figure out a difficult bite is to have it change the next day. If you caught fish on a pattern one day this week, then it was almost always dead the next.
For the week, we caught and released 25 walleyes over 27 in., including 6 – 28s, and 1 – 30. Volume was up and down with an average of 35 walleyes over 18 in. per day per boat. The highest daily total was 83.
There was no effort pike fishing this week and the bass were almost all incidental catch while walleye fishing. For the week there were 8 smallies over 17 in., including 2 – 18s, and 1 -19. Most of the bass were caught in 15 – 30 ft. of water. For our end of the lake, that means that the peak of the bass season is definitely over for the year.
It would be nice to know what we could have done with more stable weather, but you take what you get in the North. This week felt much more like Mid Sept. than July weather except that there were still lots of walleyes still spread out in transition spots. I was a frustrated guide this week, but as always, can’t help but being an optimist and looking forward to next week. No matter what, I know that it will be different than this week.
