{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Boundary Waters report

Oh, the bottom 2 (mangled) flies were whistlers?  Bucktail with a spiral collar?  Whatever -- something.  I forgot about that.  All of it worked.  

I had more pics, but some involved cleaning and eating fish -- so I chose not to post those since this forum is kind of sensitive about that.  If anyone wants to talk about what various fish species taste like (or which stringers work best, etc.), just PM me offline.  

Gene

On Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:36:57 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:

Hey there -- we took a 7-day trip to the boundary waters to chill in a log cabin and canoe fish.  I was primarily intending to target pike (or "Northerns" as everyone up there calls them), and geared up with the following:

9' 5-weight - floating (6 weight line though)

9' 8-weight - floating, teeny t-200, 250 gr intermediate

insane amount of flies and spools of leader material

huge forceps

3 nippers

wire cutters

heavy duty snaps

AFW 7x7 wire (13 pound)

Knot-2-kinky wire (25 pound)

Deet wipes, and some with picaradin also

Side note:  Canoes, canoes, canoes man.  Every yard, truck top, subaru, etc. had at least 1 aluminum canoe, often 2-3.  Everything is CANOE up there.  I know people like to do paddle trips up there, but holy cow I've never seen so many canoes.  The boundary waters probably accounts for the survival of the canoe industry in this country.  I chock that up to people knowing that for freshwater lakes and rivers, canoes are really the tool for the job.  Since the land up there is full of confiers, wolves, moose, mosquitos, black flies, black bears, and a lot of yearly snowfall, everything seems to be "tough" up there.  Hence the numerous aluminum canoes.  

For flies, I tied a ton of general "bucktails" on massive (for me) 2/0 and 3/0 eagle claw hooks my in-laws found in one of their basements from the 1990s, I think.  They were heavy duty catfish hooks, but took a file quite well and were fit for the job ("sharp" and fairly sturdy was all I was looking for anyway).  I basically tied bead chain eyes, thin sprig of LONG bucktail in white or yellow, and a few strands of random flash -- all tied to the "bottom" of the hook".  I think they swim better and foul less that way.  If you can cast and double haul well, you can cast even there larger flies (and wire) on a 6-weight line, which I did after the first couple of days.  

I did not even bother with the non-floating lines -- didn't need or want to after getting fish in shallow water.  

We experienced every kind of weather -- the day we arrived it was windy and 48F, and the day we left was 88F and felt like D.C.  Most days started with layers of wool and fleece, and ended with a t-shirt.  That kind of stuff -- like shad fishing in the spring, but 0.0001% of the people.  

Side note 2:  Our lake map said "N. pike, walleye, bluegill, yellow perch" and that was it.  So our expectation was "let's try for pike since they're cool and we don't have those back home really".  I played around with several leader types, but ultimately settled on about 5' of 40-pound seaguar fluoro with perfection loops in either end, and then about 8" of the titanium wire with a perfection loop in one end, and a figure 8 in the other.  Worked like a charm, and didn't tend to "pigtail" or kink nearly as bad as the AFW (though the AFW certainly works fine).  For the "tieable" single strand wire, you have to understand that knots don't close up very pretty, but they hold just fine.  

What we experienced was some not-too-easy lake fishing, at least at first.  The family was mostly throwing lures, and not getting a whole lot of strikes in the likely spots.  Fish here or there kind of thing for the first couple of days.  I had actually decent action on flies the majority of the trip and caught the most fish, surprisingly.  I'll attach a few pics below for reference.  

I did not meet my made-up goal of catching a big pike.  I mostly caught "hammer handles (little pike the locals hate even more than pike in general because they get in the way of walleye), and a few smaller and maybe 2-3 "medium" pike.  They're a lot of fun and I'd really like to go back and do a pike trip there in the fall when the big ones are more active!  They attack in a very exciting way and totally destroy flies.  Love those guys.  They were mostly in wood, and in weeds.  Overall though, I'd have to rate it is a somewhat below-average pike lake (at least where we were).  

What we were excited to fine, is that the whole damn place is an untapped bass fishery!  We caught a lot of smallies and largies, and not a one was small by my standards.  My nephew took a smallie that I think pushed 4 pounds -- biggest I've ever seen, with that pretty blue face.  He's a youngster and was just beside himself ;).  Beth took a pig of a largemouth (pic) and we both got other medium ones.  Oddly, nothing was put off in the least by my heavy leader and wire.  They all took it.  

Oh, and I caught 2 walleye on the same flies I was using for the pike and bass -- at night, off the dock.  We ate those.  

Ate some of the pike too -- they're absolutely delicious, y-bones and all.  Just eat 'em.  They crunch okay.  

I won't list the specific lake and/or town because it's pointless -- there were hundreds of lakes up there that all fish the same way, so if anyone was considering it -- go find one and have an adventure!  We selected one that was "no motor" because we knew it would basically eliminate the ilk we tend to try to avoid.  We had a great time up there with the whole family, and now our butts are very sore and our backs and arms are taut from paddling.  

Oh, and it's true about aluminum canoes.  They're loud, hot in the hot, cold in the cold, but you know?  They worked.  If you watch your paddle and just be careful, they work just fine and you can sneak up on fish.  I actually hated them a lot less than I thought, and you can't destroy one -- so whatever.  I went with the grumman because it was free for use and the lighter ones cost money and were not too high on the primary stability list (i.e., they were mostly for paddlers and not fishermen).  

Gene

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