Minnesotans love to talk about the weather and lately it has been hot and muggy. Unfortunately this is slip bobber time and it is anything but comfortable anchoring the boat when it is 85 degrees. I find myself moving a lot from spot to spot even if the fish are still biting, just to cool off. Swimming is actually sounding like a good idea and I am the kind of guy that only swims if the boat is sinking.
Thefishing on Sag has been slow to fair and the weather has everything to do with the bite. If there is no wind, you can expect very few walleye feeding. Luckily, lake trout and bass have been cooperating a lot more than the walleyes.
The smallmouth bass were biting so fast and furious the other day that between two boats, we had over 50 respectable size fish by lunch time. My friend Curtis Blake, who was guiding the second boat, wore out a patch of skin on his thumb from handling so many smallies, and I was worried about running out of leeches. We started the day with over a pound of jumbos and were quickly reduced to a quarterpound by lunchtime.
Minnesotans also love walleyes. In fact many other states, such as Iowa, might refer to Minnesotans as walleye snobs. I had a rare opportunity to guide a gentleman who was looking for a trophy northern pike, but I was unable to produce. We trolled big crank baits over the trout humps and steep rock piles on the big lake, but only managed to catch a few small ones. Northern fishing is not my specialty, but I have seen enough of them grab onto a walleye or bass that has been hooked to know where they live. It just was not happening that day. Even the smallmouth stopped biting. It was a treat to take out one client for a change. The boat ran a lot faster and all I could think was how much water we would be able to cover. Go figure, the bite was off.Thatis fishing.
Some guys have been catching a few walleyes in the early fall spots, but they are only 12 to 14 inches long and are hard to release when ripped out of 25 feet of water. I cannot bring myself to do that, just to say we caught some walleyes. As far as I am concerned they do not count until 15 inches and I am not about to kill off the future stock for some bar stool glory. You know who you are!
I expect the bite to get better and better as cooler nights start to drop the surface temperatures a little. We were seeing a lot of 77 degree water, which is just unheard of in these parts, and there has not been enough wind to mix up the lake. Rest assured, the fishing is just like our weather, unpredictable and always changing.
Cory Christianson, a 2000
graduate of the University of
Iowa, has worked as a fishing
guide on the Gunflint Trail
for nine years. If you have
any fishing reports or stories
to share, send an email to:
christiansoncory@hotmail.
com or call 218-388-0315
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