I've been to the BWCAW many times but am looking for advice on how to fish new lakes this hot time of the year. We usually fallback on cruising the shorelines and throwing spinners and Mepps up to the edge, under tree branches, and pulling them back, but never seem to have much luck. Do you fish around big visible rock piles, how do you fish the open water with unknown depth? Do you jig fish while drifting?

The best way is to take a look at a depth map if available before your trip. Drift with live bait rigs either a lindy or some type of spinner rig with a leech, crawler or minnow in deeper water off reefs, points, islands or sloping shorelines til you find some fish. Fish that area hard and you have found your pattern for that lake. Look for similar water on the lake and hit it hard

Agree with BWVet on checking maps first, but I also use a small locator to show me depth, structure and water temp. You can find small locators very reasonably priced on ebay and/or craigslist.

A locator is a must if you're serious about finding fish here. That said, I'm leaving my locator at home in the name of going light.

But with a locator I would troll in 15-20 feet of water away from the shore. Try to keep the boat at this depth and use Rapala Taildancers or other deep crankbaits.

If you plan on fishing a lake for a few days you can mark your map with humps and reefs that you find by doing this. Then go back to these areas later and work them over with live bait, jigs, spoons, or spinners.

The trick is to find the areas where the fish are. It can be near impossible without studying a topo map and using a depth locator. Either that or go in June. :)

If you don't have a depth finder, the topography around the lake should give you a fairly good idea what's going on under the water. Not always, but typically if you have steep bluffs above the water, it drops off pretty quick below the water.

Gradual sloping points above water, will tend to be a gradual sloping point under the water.

Try to fish as many different depths and situations as possible until you locate fish. Try to figure out a pattern, and then stick to it.

One of the boundary waters books on fishing, suggests setting out 4 slip bobbers at various depths (obviously you need at least 4 in your group to do this). Set one at 6', one at 12', one at 18', and one at 24', and see which one gets the bites. That particular day, that's probably the depth you're going to find action.

I like to find vegetation. There's not a ton of it in the boundary waters, and where there's vegetation, it's usually holding fish. Bait fish go in there to eat and find shelter, and the big fish like to eat the little fish.

It's tough to fish in the wind, but the wind blown shorelines usually out produce the calm side. IF a lake doesn't have a ton of depth, you might try finding some shady spots. Some of those bluffs will provide shade for the walleyes, and they'll stack up in there. It also gives them a place to corral bait fish.

Personally I like a fishing buddy depth finder. Every canoe that comes through fishes the same down trees along the shoreline, but those mid lake humps often get overlooked, and have "virgin" fish stacked along them.

I've never tried it, but I've heard that active loons are usually feeding on bait fish, and if you follow them around the lake you'll often find fish.

When we're moving from one spot to the next, we usually drag a floating rapala off the shallow side of the canoe, and a deeper running shad rap or tail dancer off the deeper side of the canoe, and then just follow the shoreline in 6-18 ft of water. When we find fish, we switch to leeches and slip bobbers, or some sort of lindy rig.

I like to move move move. I don't spend a whole lot of time at any given spot. I'm looking for active fish. They're around if you keep moving. Try rocks, vegetation, stumps, down trees, humps, shallow deep, mid range. Find a pattern and stick with it.

Even if they're not biting, by paddling around mid day, if the wind isn't blowing, you'll be able to see some of those mid lake humps. Try to note your position and come back in the evening or in the morning, and they'll be there.

This time of year is tough for walleyes. Don't be afraid to fish after dark. Pulling a rapala or shad rap in 6-12' is usually productive after dark. The fish come up into shallow water to feed.

One of my neighbors used to fish Minnetonka in the middle of the summer. He'd just sit in one of those narrow channels that separate the deeper main basin, and a shallow bay. He knew after the sun went down, at some point, those walleyes would migrate out of the deep into the shallows to feed, and they had to go right past him to get there. He'd catch 25-30 inch fish just about every time he went out.

I look for active loons in odd places. Sometimes this can give away the location of a hump.

Figuring out a new lake has many factors,what time of year is it, what is the water quality, what species are present, what kind of structure does it have, what is the water temp, are there inlets and outlets. The first most important key to a new lake is research, are there lake info reports, is there a map, putting together a game plan will increase your odds greatly if you have an idea what your facing before you ever get to the lake. On the flip side lets say you show up to a lake with no info at all and you want to fish it. You have no depthfinder, no way to check water temp, no map, and no info on the lake. The first thing I look at is water clarity, if its really clear that tells me im going to use natural color lures, and black is always a good choice in clear water. The fish will more than likely be a little deeper, but that can change with factors such as rain, good cover in shallow water, or available preyfish coming in shallow, and also if its early or late. Fishing at night on a clear lake can be very productive. Look for islands, points that extend out into deeper water, you should be able to tell the deeper water by the color change from light to dark. Look at the land around the lake, are there steep bluffs that extend into the water, I would fish this side of the lake first unless its that way all around the lake. I always start out with active lures, black spinnerbaits, blue and silver rattlin rapalas, road runners, floating raps , cranbaits. If nothing is hitting I will work progressively deeper especially around any mid lake island or reefs that are available. Jigs, jigs and leeches, jigging spoons and such. If its a dark or tannin stained lake I start out shallow with active brighter color lures such as firetiger, charteuse, orange, and really work the shallow stuff until I know thay arent there, and then start looking for deeper structure. All fish have certain hard and fast rules that they almost always stick to, if theres no baitfish or insects to feed on, 99 percent of the time they arent going to be there, so if your fishing a lake trout lake in the middle of the day in the middle of summer,in a hundred feet of water and your using a topwater, ( good luck with that) im not saying you wont catch a fish but your chance are almost zero, whereas if it was say like late may you would still have the opportunity to catch a fish in that same scenario. You can catch a smallie in the middle of the day over 60 feet of water on topwater at times, so understanding the difference in species will increase your chance of catching them. So to summarize for fishing a new lake, get a map, learn whats in the lake, use different lures for different water clarity, understand the changes in fish location for the different times of year, start shallow and work deeper, and always have some leeches just in case none of these other scenarios are working. Some will tell you that should start with leeches, fish leeches in the middle, and end with leeches, and thats not a bad approach as long as you can find the fish or if you already know where the fish are, but for eliminating unproductive water quickly on an unknown lake nothing is faster in my opinion than a spinnerbait or rattle trap as long as theres not a major cold front, and even then these lures can still be effective. p.s. Theres a few more factors to conside,r but I cant give away all the secrets because there wouldnt be any fish left for me to catch lol :-)

Bring a portable locater if you can. In my experiences the topo maps for most lakes are inaccurate. They may be somewhat close, but without a locater you'll never find humps, reefs, flats, etc.

Fish generally relate to 3 things:

Food
Shelter
Temperature

There are things like moon cycles, and barometic pressure that affect their feeding cycles, but those 3 things about cover it.

When you fish Mille Lacs in the summer, you find Walleyes in 28-34 feet on the mud flats. They need to be that deep to have the proper water temperature to be comfortable, and they're over the mud, because there are multiple hatches throughout the summer. They either feed on the hatch, or feed on the bait fish, that are feeding on the hatch.

I don't see the fish at those sorts of depths (unless you're fishing lake trout), in the boundary waters. The water is quite a bit colder. 6-18' is often plenty cold. If you've ever been swimming up there, you can feel the tremendous difference just down a foot or two, but there's often another temp change 6 or 7 ft down. Next time you're up there, swim down a ways and take note of how the water temp changes.

We were looking for my B.I.L's reading glasses one year, that had fallen overboard. It was about 7 or 8 ft of water. The top 6 feet wasn't too bad, but we found that last foot or so, where we had to stick our hands to feel around on the bottom, was very very cold, and that was in early July. Even 10 or 20 seconds of feeling around in that bottom foot was painful.

When my son goes scuba diving on certain lakes, he'll rarely see fish below the thermocline. For the lakes he was on, it was about 32 ft down, but it can vary from lake to lake. There is such a thing as "too cold" for a fish. Obviously the lakers are down 60 ft or more this time of year, but, depending on the lake, you probably don't have to be fishing 24'-28' for walleyes, like you might be on Mille Lacs or the St. Croix right now.

When we go fish the croix, we try various depths until we find them, and then generally stick to those depths. It works the same way in the boundary waters.

It's like basspro said, use a lure you have confidence in, that covers a lot of water, and troll around for a while. If there's two of you, set one line to run at 6-12, and another to run at 12-18 and see who's getting more bites.

We went on a trip to Algoma to fish for Lakers, Steelhead, Coho, and Kings. I thought the charters would have some sort of special knowledge about fish patterns and such. It didn't really work that way. They just put out like 13 lines, some on the surface, some at 60ft, some at 100 ft etc. There's also several other charter services out there and they're are all on the radio with each other. When one boat finds success on a certain lure at a certain depth, they radio the information to the others, and it's game on.

You can do the same thing. Send out a couple canoes into virgin water. Have one canoe working shallow, and another working deep, and check back with each other in an hour or two and compare notes. When you catch something, pay attention to where, how deep, and on what. You can usually repeat the scenario with success.

Keep in mind there are certain weather patterns that may shut a lake down, but for the most part, a little detective work, and trying a variety of depths, lures, and colors, will eventually help you pattern the fish.

Thanks guys and keep the answers coming. I'm going up in 2 weeks and really listening to all your advice and insight!

quote Basspro69: "Figuring out a new lake has many factors,what time of year is it, what is the water quality, what species are present, what kind of structure does it have, what is the water temp, are there inlets and outlets. The first most important key to a new lake is research, are there lake info reports, is there a map, putting together a game plan will increase your odds greatly if you have an idea what your facing before you ever get to the lake. On the flip side lets say you show up to a lake with no info at all and you want to fish it. You have no depthfinder, no way to check water temp, no map, and no info on the lake. The first thing I look at is water clarity, if its really clear that tells me im going to use natural color lures, and black is always a good choice in clear water. The fish will more than likely be a little deeper, but that can change with factors such as rain, good cover in shallow water, or available preyfish coming in shallow, and also if its early or late. Fishing at night on a clear lake can be very productive. Look for islands, points that extend out into deeper water, you should be able to tell the deeper water by the color change from light to dark. Look at the land around the lake, are there steep bluffs that extend into the water, I would fish this side of the lake first unless its that way all around the lake. I always start out with active lures, black spinnerbaits, blue and silver rattlin rapalas, road runners, floating raps , cranbaits. If nothing is hitting I will work progressively deeper especially around any mid lake island or reefs that are available. Jigs, jigs and leeches, jigging spoons and such. If its a dark or tannin stained lake I start out shallow with active brighter color lures such as firetiger, charteuse, orange, and really work the shallow stuff until I know thay arent there, and then start looking for deeper structure. All fish have certain hard and fast rules that they almost always stick to, if theres no baitfish or insects to feed on, 99 percent of the time they arent going to be there, so if your fishing a lake trout lake in the middle of the day in the middle of summer,in a hundred feet of water and your using a topwater, ( good luck with that) im not saying you wont catch a fish but your chance are almost zero, whereas if it was say like late may you would still have the opportunity to catch a fish in that same scenario. You can catch a smallie in the middle of the day over 60 feet of water on topwater at times, so understanding the difference in species will increase your chance of catching them. So to summarize for fishing a new lake, get a map, learn whats in the lake, use different lures for different water clarity, understand the changes in fish location for the different times of year, start shallow and work deeper, and always have some leeches just in case none of these other scenarios are working. Some will tell you that should start with leeches, fish leeches in the middle, and end with leeches, and thats not a bad approach as long as you can find the fish or if you already know where the fish are, but for eliminating unproductive water quickly on an unknown lake nothing is faster in my opinion than a spinnerbait or rattle trap as long as theres not a major cold front, and even then these lures can still be effective. p.s. Theres a few more factors to conside,r but I cant give away all the secrets because there wouldnt be any fish left for me to catch lol :-)"

+1

And now for my LLLLOOONNNGGGG answer:



Ditto above!
Sharp hooks
Fresh line
When I have trouble with a bite
I use one stick of DYNOMITE!!!!

(unless you are johnny law-then I use a grub....)