About five days ago, Matt “Howie” Norton and I got on the phone and made a plan to fish the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior today. The forecast was for clear skies, warm temperatures and almost no wind. These are rare conditions on Lake Superior and almost nonexistent in early May. We were also counting a Wisconsin weather report wasn’t going to change in five days. But miracles do happen in fly fishing and today, Howie, Granny and I took advantage of the prediction and the weather didn’t disappoint.
We launched out of beautiful Bayfield, WI. It was a purposely late departure of about 9 AM. When you have Granny along we have to wait until the temps are at least in the 40°s. We had about 45° and they were rising fast. The mighty lake was completely glass. We ran full throttle for about 20 minutes and soon we were easing our way into the shallows on the north side of Madeline Island.
Granny lounged and Howie and I went to work. Granny was waiting for the temps to hit the 50°s. I had my usual two streamer rig. My point fly was an olive Neuman Clouser and my dropper was a brown Sculpin. I used my fast sinking Scientific Anglers Sonar Titan 3D Sink 1/3/5 WF6S. Howie’s set up is similar. As soon as our first cast hit the water our eyes wandered to the gorgeous shoreline scenery.
The Apostle Islands are spectacular and mostly unknown to Americans. There’s talk of making the area a National Park but I hope they don’t. The longer this place stays under the radar the better.
Well, I should have been paying more attention to my fishing rather than the scenery. When you’re streamer fish you should always be watching for following fish. Sure enough, on only my second cast, I had a large brown trout following the Clouser. The water is so clear that even though he was ten feet down, I saw him. But he had followed awhile and he was losing interest. I went into action by adding a few enticing twitches then I let the Clouser sink. The fish made a quick grab but I missed him. Dang!
Its never good luck to catch a fish on your first cast of the day, however, it would have been ok on the second one. But to miss one on the second cast, that’s also bad luck. I knew right then and there the fish gods weren’t going to be easy on us the rest of the day. Sure enough they made fishing a challenge. We never had another fish eat our flies for hours.
It wasn’t like we didn’t fish hard, including Granny. We fished miles of the shoreline of Madeline Island. Howie fishes here often including a few days ago and he saw lots of fish and caught a few. Next we explored some new water even further out from land. We fished at least a couple hours on the north tip of Stockton Island. The water looked amazing but we saw one fish and he would not eat. There were hardly any fish and the ones that were around refused the fly or spooked.
Plain and simple, the problem was that it was too sunny and too calm. Without any wind to refract the lake surface, the fish were probably terrified to work the shallows. Like I mentioned in my first paragraph, Lake Superior is rarely calm. It was so calm that fish were spooking as our fly lines hit the water.
We aren’t ones to give up though as you know if you read this blog. It was so amazingly nice out on the lake that we kept on trying. We took some breaks and soaked up some sun. We had sandwiches and snacks to go with a few microbrews – so all was good.
At about 4 PM as I was finally losing some steam up in the front of the boat, I saw a rise. More of a splash. With zero hesitation I picked up my fly half way through the previous cast and managed to drop the Clouser right in the rings. One strip and I had the fish. It was only a 12” brown trout. But no blank!
We called it a day around 5:30. If it was just me and Howie we likely would have fished till dark. But I’m glad we didn’t. A big wind kicked in just as we pulled back into Bayfield. Unexpected wind is extremely dangerous on Lake Superior. That’s all for today. Tonight Granny and I are crashing in Iron River and we’ll head back home tomorrow. We have plans to fish for pike and bass in a couple days.
Hi Jeff,
I was looking at Suttle Lake boat ramp stuff and came across your blog, great stuff. Had a quick question, I was thinking about bringing my boat to Suttle Lake and have never been there before. I was wondering what’s the parking situation with truck and trailer. I read there’s five boat ramps, which one is the best one to use.
Thanks Jeff