Lower Manitou Lake Fishing Reports by Camp Manitou

[MattFromDuluth]

How deep were folks finding fish this weekend? Any thoughts on how long they will stay up? Found them anywhere from 70' to 125' on the first weekend in May. Will be back up this coming Friday and trying to decide how deep to start... Any feedback appreciated. MM

[Robin]

The guys yesterday and today found them from 30-110 ft...still scattered. They were downrigging, trolling and some jigging.

[Outfitter17]

Matt,

Right now we are finding them in the 35' to 65' range where we fish on the lake. Guys have been having really good luck just fishing from shore with ciscos, playing cards and relaxing. A couple boats are long line trolling mepps #5 with a piece of sucker meat or porkrind on the mepps, they just put a 1oz. chain weight about 3' in front of the mepps and start trolling, the best luck has been in South Bay, Peep Bay, and Down in Mirror Bay in Esox. We have also had some really good luck with the Siebel jigging spoons in 3/4 oz. with the gold pattern, when we find a school of trout we can just sit on top of them an pick them off one at a time. We had a guest bring a couple samples up last fall and they were like magic. They outfished our go to white tubes at least 10-1 and they seem to be doing the same this spring.

Mister lake: has been good the past two weeks with trout in the 20-40' range, best pattern seems to be just trolling the breaks out from shore approx. 30-40 yds.

Dogfly lake: has been good in the NW section, dead bait rigging and jigging worked well on Sunday with most fish coming on the wind blown points in 40-50' of water.

Good luck on your trip.

[MattFromDuluth]

Thanks for the reports Robin and Matt. Hoping to find some bigger trout this weekend. My one week of walleye fever is over, back to the world of trouts. I appreciate the feedback and will try to post what we find early next week. gold has been hot for me this year, while I save the "go-to" white tubes for the ice season.

Never fished Dogfly in the summer - Too much water, not enough time.

MM

[MattFromDuluth]

We found the trout. Much deeper than expected (110 down over 125 FOW). Great fishing, awesome weather and a sore right arm from reeling up the downrigger balls so many times.

Gotta love the Manitou.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

[Hoffer]

Matt from Duluth

where did you fish them there?

The reason I ask is that we have been going up there for a few years now. I always look at these posts and they say "well, the trout were in 110 feet of water or they were shallow or they were in 65 feet" etc...

I am no trout expert by any means (kind of the opposite actually!!) but we have found that with the downrigger set down at 40 feet we can troll anywhere in that lake and catch trout from 45 feet deep to 120 feet deep.

It didnt appear that any one depth was any better than another? They just seem to be all over the place and scattered here and there and if you cover ground you will find them most anywhere and if they are deep they will come up to 40 feet to smack a lure. Its just such a great trout fishery and that is what was so fun. We just set our ball down at 40 feet and fished away and always caught fish

So, I always wondered if we just hit the time right when they are biting at any depth or is there really time periods where you have to essentially be right in the "zone" or your not going to catch any??

Thanks for the feedback and report!!

BTW, did you try for smallies at all?? and if so, what did you find for the smallies? Were they in any particular kind of pattern? shallow? staging yet? any bedding fish?

Thanks!

Hoffer

[Outfitter17]

Here are a couple of early spring fish. Bass are starting to bed up on a few spots on the lake, the weather is rainy with temps in the mid 60's. I am guessing they will be loaded on the beds in the next 3-5 days. Best bass pattern has been simple watermelon tubes and watermelon or motor oil wacky worms.

[Outfitter17]

We are having some tough weather right now, but the fishing has been good. Here are a few pictures from the New Vision Group that has been in for a couple of days.

[Outfitter17]

6/7/12

Fishing has been nothing short of dynamite the past week or so. The weather has been hot, clear, with light wind. For some reason the fish didn't care. The best fishing has been in Alonghill Lake, Dogfly Lake, Mister Lake, Esox Lake, and Calder. Here are a few pics from the past week.

If anyone has any questions about our area, feel free to ask.

[prov1900]

Great pics. Looks like a great season underway!

[Outfitter17]

Prov1900,

The season has been great so far. Lots of great guests and lots of Trophy Fish. Esox has been hot, along with a number of our portage lakes.

The top water bass bite is just about in full swing - can't wait to get back out there!

[Outfitter17]

6/14/12

Here are few fish from the past few days: The biggest walleye was a 32.5" and there have been a lot caught in the 20"-24" range. The muskies were both 42". There smallmouth bass fishing has been really hot, the topwater bit is in full swing and it sure is exciting right now. I will post a bunch of SMB pictures in a couple days.

[Hoffer]

Matt

Holy Cow!

Were those eyes caught in the bay that starts with the letter M?

or a cache lake or what?

I have to believe it wasnt a Cache lake...I dont think they get that big in thoise smaller lakes.

I hope i dont get bashed for this but did they C and R ?? (espcecially the big ones)

[Outfitter17]

Hi Mark,

The biggest walleye was caught just North of beaver head island, the guys happen to catch 2 walleyes. One was a 29" (bad picture) and the other was a 32.5".

The rest of them are from a guide to portage lake we use just off the cedar. We just boat back to the landing, put the boat on the trailer and drive over to the lake. The trip from camp to the two walleye lakes we use only takes about 30 mInutes.

All the fish were C+R, we have a couple pan size for shore lunch, but that's it. Our guests don't really keep any fish anyway, most guests are bass fisherman and they never keep anything. I believe that is why our section of the lake seems to get better and better each season and why our portage lakes are incredible is due to not having many fish taken out (c+r only on portage lakes).

We have now seen a couple walleye on the north section of lower, so I guess they are slowly expanding their range.

[Hoffer]

Thanks for the reply Matt!

Thats all VERY cool!

My next question is - how did those guys think to try walleye fishing just north of Beaverhead? Were they fishing something else and caught them - or were they targeting them? I wouldnt have thought to even try in that area - uness I guess i found something on my finder...but who knows what that could be?

Your right....its really cool those fish are starting to distribute a little more. I hope everyone practices C and R on those eyes for the time being so they can establish themselves even better.

An eye over 30 for a canadien lake is just awesome. So, I have to believe there is something about the Tou that grows them big. too bad they werent in there naturally for years

Thanks Matt and have a good one!

[Outfitter17]

Mark,

When they were launching their boat we ran into a cabin owner from upper and he said he had caught walleyes in the Watson's narrows area and believed you could catch them all the way down to the beaverhead island area. I told him we had a guest catch one in glass bay last July and he wasn't surprised.

The guys decided to try fishing that area just to see if they could run into one. They fished the points of islands, current break areas, and ledges that transitioned from 7'-12'. They got lucky and caught two really nice fish, along with a lot of bass and northerns.

Hopefully everyone releases their walleye if they do catch them on the Manitou and maybe in 10 years we will have a catch-able population on our end of the lake.

So far I have heard to many rumors that most the walleyes caught on Upper are being kept - sad to say hopefully it's not true, but I tending to believe the rumors on this one.

[Hoffer]

Its good news, bad news Matt.

It really sounds like the walleyes like the Manitou. There must be some natural reproduction with the variety of sizes being caught. I would have a tough time telling someone to throw back a 32.5 eye. Thats a lifetime fish. But they should be releasing the reproducing fish. Maybe the resort owners up there could work together to put some information of their websites to kind of promote releasing any walleyes if caught?

I suppose some will say - it is what it is - and they have every right to keep fish. I would simply say keep all the smallies, norts and trout that you can - but please throw back the eyes and give them a running chance to establish a nice population. I think it would be really cool for my kids to come up there some day with their kids and be able to fish walleye on the manitou on a regular basis

[Outfitter17]

Mark,

I talked with Angela at Green Island about making sure all the walleyes are released and she agreed 100%. I also talked to Ted Davis 2 years ago about the same thing and he kinda thought if guys caught them and wanted to keep them that was OK. I also know of a couple cabin owners/guests that keep their full limits of walleyes whenever they catch them - so that doesn't help the walleye fishery if you are trying to improve it. I would consider the walleye fishery on Manitou fragile, it can go either way - let them all go and try to improve it or keep whatever you can catch (legal limit) and watch it struggle along like it has for the past 20 years with limited growth.

I think it will be along time before we get a fish able population down here and taking any walleyes out of the system will hurt us in the long run. No matter what size they are.

As I mentioned in past posts, I guess our fishing is getting better and better on our end of the lake due to mostly conservation policies. We do plenty of shore lunches while out guiding, but fish are rarely take home. I think only 6-8 guests have taken fish home this year. Most of our guests come from down south, mainly Bass fisherman and they don't care to keep any. We also have a no eating/taking fish policy on all our portage lakes, most of them have been pretty incredible the past couple of seasons and with the polices we put into place 5 years ago they should continue to get better each year.

Here is a nice pike from one of our portage lakes yesterday.

[Hoffer]

Hey Matt

I agree with your post 100%.

It will take a joint effort - and maybe another float plane to accidentally dump in a 55 gallon barrel of fry

Very nice Nort!! Mister?

[Outfitter17]

Hi Mark,

We have caught quite a few good northerns in Mister this year, but the one above is from Alonghill Lake - it has also produce some beauties so far this year.

Here are a few more nice pictures from the past week. The big Muskie below was caught by Sabrina a couple days ago. It was approx. 8:30pm in the evening with a storm blowing in when this muskie nailed a top raider style bait. The fish measured approx. 50". It was her first muskie - so needless to say she was very happy.

The following picture is a nice release shot of the fish being let go to fight another day.

The weather has been up and down the past couple of weeks, but the fishing has stayed pretty good.

[Hoffer]

What an awesome Muskie!

From the release pic it looks pretty darn fat too!

Thanks for the pics.

[Outfitter17]

6/27/12

We have been catching lots of Northerns in the 24"-30" range in the 6'-10' bays with cabbage topping out just under the surface. The bigger Northerns (34"+) are being found on the 12'-14' breaks dropping into 18'+ of water, with Cabbage above in the 6'-9' range. Weed development is normal for this time of year on most sections of the lake, with a few spots ahead of schedule.

The Bass are everywhere right now, shallow on the rocky shorelines, deep on the rocky shorelines, in the weeds, on the reefs, etc. We have been catching them on everything from Mepps #5 burning them to wacky worms just barely moving them along.

The trout are being caught in the 40'-60' range over 90' jigging. There has been good success on white tube jigs, but the lure that is catching fire this summer is a perch colored Sebile jigging spoon in the 3/4oz. They are very hard to find in the stores and a little spendy, but from what I have seen from last fall and this summer they are worth it.

The water temps have been ranging from 65-71 depending on where you are on the system, with the current weather forecast the water temps should stay in this range for at least the next 2 weeks.

Good Luck Fishing

[Outfitter17]

Neal McAmis had a pretty good fishing trip the past few days, He boated 5 muskies ranging from 32" to 50.25" (PB), along with some nice bass, both largemouth and smallmouth.

The weather was really hot early in the week, but finished nicely on Friday with cooler temps and overcast skies.

During the week approx. 50+ muskies were seen with 15 being caught with the biggest being Neal's 50.25".

The bigger bass are running a bit deeper with the high sun and warm water temps.

The bigger pike are in the 12'-15' range just off the deeper cabbage.

[Outfitter17]

I just ran across this on another fishing forum and thought I would pass the info on.

SAFE FISH HANDLING TIPS FOR WARM WATER PERIODS

If you fish and have friends that fish, PLEASE pass this info along to everyone you can.

We’ve heard multiple reports of big muskies (and a big walleye as well) being found belly up dead on the surface of the warm water during periods of extreme heat. Please consider the following when fishing for any species while surface temps are high (high 70’s, 80’s.)

1. Land the fish as quickly as possible. Put away ultra-light rod combos when walleye fishing and use good heavy duty muskie rods for muskies and pike. Minimize the fight to limit the amount of lactic acid burn.

2. KEEP THE FISH IN THE WATER. Use landing net, cradle or hand land and unhook fish while the fish is in the water, with extra caution used to keep the head in the water. You should never bring a fish into the boat to work on hook removal. This is not a good practice at any time of the year.

3. Allow the fish to recover in the water before any photos are taken. Use cradle, large nets that allow the fish to sit upright and recover from the trauma of the fight.

4. Consider water releases & photos with fish just up out of the water for a moment before putting it back in.

5. Have all camera gear ready and functioning properly before fish comes out of the water. Be prepared for 1-2 very quick photos and get the fish immediately back into the water.

6. Support your fish horizontally under its belly at all times. Vertical holds have been proven to damage a fish’s skeletal structure and should always be supported with both hands in some way while holding for photos.

7. Hold the fish still while release it. It’s no longer suggested to move the fish forward and back during a release. Allow the fish to sit upright and monitor it after release if it stays on the surface. Any fish that appears it will not make it should be harvested if it is of legal size. Any fish not of legal size must not be harvested regardless of whether or not it will die upon release.

Thank you for taking extra caution with our precious natural resources. Safe handling techniques, particularly during warm water periods, will significantly improve the future of our fisheries.

[Hoffer]

Thanks Matt.

Good information.

On a side note. That last sentence.

This is one rule they should really try to do away with. If the fish is not in the size limit but obviously not going to make it - why waste it?

I am sure they will say that some fisherman may try to "beat the system" and say they harvested the fish even though it was not in the legal length limit because the fish died or was going to die.

That may be the case...sometimes.

I am hopeful most fisherman simply wouldnt break the rule just to beat the system.

I guess others may say that bigger fish arent that good eating anyway. Possibly. But it still just seems wasteful.

Then there is probably the last group. They will say that we shouldnt be fishing for larger fish anyway in the high heat and high water temps. I understand that argument too...but thats pretty hard to do. I have caught bigger Muskie simply throwing a small bass spinnerbait.

Anyway, sorry to digress. Just some thoughts. How has the fishing been? I always wonder how those trout do when released from the deeper waters this time of year when the surface temps are so warm.