The lake trout bite has been a little off this week. Saganaga has had the best reports for both action and size. I spent Saturday on Gunflint Lake with four anglers and only managed to find a couple of fish. Pretty slow in my book, but some other fishermen I spoke with were having even worse luck. Canada is now open and a lot of anglers have been fishing the Canadian side of Sag. Larry Marxen, owner of Chippewa Inn, caught a giant lake trout on the Canadian side of Saganaga last week that unofficially went over 30 pounds. What a pig!
I use an eight-inch auger and I would not have been able to squeeze that giant through any of my holes. Luckily, Larry has a 10-inch auger, but he admitted that the fish was caught through another angler’s recently deserted hole. Larry was going to stop and chat with some friends who were fishing the Blueberry hump, but they had already packed up and gone home. He noticed their holes had some fishy signage so he decided to drop a jig for a few minutes while enjoying the beautiful sunset. You gotta love that. How many times have we given up and wondered what would have happened if we would have fished a little bit longer? Larry did not have a scale or ruler along, but he has caught a lot of trout in his days and he said it was much bigger than some 20-pounders he has caught in the past. A lake the size of Saganaga has the ability and the correct forage to produce some real trophies. I have based my livelihood on it. The Minnesota state record walleye is a very good example. Even though it was officially caught in Gull Lake, it was most likely a Saganaga fish that happened to be spawning in the river.
Gunflint, Clearwater, Greenwood, and even Loon could also have potential state records swimming around. I do believe that the lake needs to have a strong population of ciscoes or smelt. These baitfish allow fish to grow much heavier. Big baits create big fish. No surprise there, and if Larry would have killed that trophy laker, which I commend him for not doing, there would most likely have been some very large baitfish in its belly. Back in the day when everybody was killing trophy fish, there was usually a hawg walleye or two with eelpout in its stomach. What a fish eats comes down to a ratio of energy spent to the amount of calories taken in. Sure a trophy fish will eat small baits but most likely would prefer eating larger meals less often. It takes a lot of leeches to fill up a 10-pound walleye, but they do not have to work very hard to get them. Give these bigger lakes a try if you are looking for a true trophy. You might want to bring a 10-inch auger along just in case!
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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