I recently took a trip to Knife Lake in the BWCA with my wife June 15th through the 21st. Our focus during the week was exclusively on fishing…and while I felt I came fairly well prepared, we truly had a hard time finding walleyes/lake trout on the trip. I consider myself a better than average fisherman, but this recent trip to the BWCA left me stumped on how what I was doing wrong. I thought I would share my experience to see if anyone has any pointers for the next time I go.

We chose the June timeframe thinking it would be in a good time period for post spawn walleye action. On the very first morning we shoved off from camp (camped in a great campsite at the far west end of the lake), and began trolling two crankbaits, one a rapala, and the other a purple taildancer. Within 15 minutes we had a walleye hit the purple taildancer, and I thought we were in for an interesting week! Unfortunately that was the first and last walleye of the week, and no lake trout either.

Let me give you my general strategy for the week:
- I had never fished on Knife Lake before, so realizing it was a very large lake, my general strategy was to troll two crankbaits until we hit a walleye, and then to hunker down and soak leaches over the spot where it hit. I changed around the lures a few times for trolling, and used various rapalas and other deep diving crankbaits to no avail. Generally, we were trolling through 15 to 30 feet of water.
- Because we couldn’t troll all day without getting totally worn out, we would stop periodically and throw leeches on jigs in breaks between islands, rock piles, the occasional sunken island, etc. My general style of “jigging” for walleye is to just use an 1/8 ounce jig tied right to the line, with a leech. I generally like to cast 10 to 15 yards from the boat, and jig back to the boat and then recast; didn’t really try any other techniques (which could have been the problem?).
- We generally started fishing around 8 or 9AM, and ended around 7 or 8PM before dark, never did any night fishing because my wife was getting too worn out.

Thankfully, we had some moderate success with smallmouth bass (thanks to some suggested spots on this messageboard!), which was a lot of fun, and caught a few northern trolling as well. What saved the trip (and likely future trips) was that my wife caught a few absolute trophy smallmouth bass.

I am always interested in what other folks are doing to catch walleye and have read up on some good posts here. I realize that I am a creature of habit, who is likely to return to the same techniques. While we were a bit let down on the fishing side, we had a great time and enjoyed an incredibly beautiful area.

What would you have done in my situation? Or what tips would you give before heading up there next time?

You talk about a very common walleye fishing mistake...doing the same technique over and over and expecting a different result each time. This is known as walleye insanity. I have had this many MANY times!

You really need to work three main changes when you are not on the fish. Depth, lure and location. Often we get stuck changing just location but sticking to a technique that's not working, or on the other hand we sit on one side if the lake and throw the tackle box at them.

A good rule, unless you have them patterned and KNOW they are coming soon, is the 5-10-15 minute rule we use. We will fish each spot with a certain lure for five minutes, a certain depth in the area for 10 and a specific location for 15 minutes. This way we are hitting each area for a minimum of 15 minutes in at least two depths and with 3 lures changes. If no fish bite...we move on.

When we do find a fish, we start the clock over and do it again.

On "fishing trips" to the BWCA we don't go looking for 1-2-10 fish. Our goal is to hit the mouthed load and have 100 fish days. It doesn't work out like that all the time but when it does we know we "earned it" and when it doesn't we don't second guess ourselves as we know we tried everything we could.

If you think you may be sitting to long in one spot... You for sure are!

Glad to here you got into some bass.

Just remember they call it "fishing" not "catching" for a reason. It makes the catching days that much more memorable.

My first question would be did you take surface water temps. Everything this year especially the vegetation was way late and that can drastically alter walleye location. Where there any mayfly hatches going on at the time. Did you have a depthfinder with you, not only for finding fish but to see the development of subsurface weedgrowth. Of all the questions i would have for you, the water temp, especially this year would be by far the most important, because it would tell me if the walleyes were postspawn(recently postspawn) which would drastically affect fishing. That first walleye could have been an oddball active fish. I remember fishing a very good walleye lake, its pretty small and it was mid June and I thought they should be attacking leeches. I fished leeches shallow, deep, and midrange. I fished them on bottom bouncers, on spinners, on jigs, under a slip bobber for a few hours and was getting nothing. I eventually tied on a rattlin rapala and started hammering walleyes, and I felt the water and realized it was alot colder than I thought it would be and that the walleyes were after minnows and minnow imitations. I had left the depthfinder in my truck because I knew this lake very well but I didnt know the water temp. If I had known, I would have used minnow baits from the get go.

We all grew up hearing about the patience it takes to be a fisherman. If you are really after fish, and lots of fish, you need to be impatient. I like Sirlips' rule for time. I don't like fishing for a couple or several fish either (depending on what time dinner is, etc). A person needs to find biting fish. Of course, that is easier said than done.
Clear water like Knife gives me a hard time too.
As for specific advice that applies to the situation you were in, I would have started shallower, trolling on a long line and/or casting. Like 2 feet.

When I start my search I always start shallow and work my way into deeper water.

The other thing to think about is I see a lot of people trolling crankbaits searching for fish. When they catch one they change what they are doing and start jigging or bobber fishing over the spot they caught the fish. Why switch tactics when you just found something that worked? Stick with the crankbaits and make several more passes over the same area trying to pick off more aggressive fish. The more you can catch the better you'll be able to pinpoint the spot within the spot that is holding the fish and also the hot color for that day. Thats all good info you'll need to finding more fish.

Also pay attention to where you caught that first fish. What depth was it at? What sort of structure may it be relating to? Try to determine why the fish is in that particular location and then apply it to the rest of the lake. Start looking for spots that match many of the characteristics of the first spot and you are likely to find more fish.

quote nofish: "When I start my search I always start shallow and work my way into deeper water. "

Totally agree, the only question is it shoreline shallow or basin structure like mid lake islands shallow.

Thats a great point Basspro69. When going shallow to deep...the choice is lake structure or shore line. What should decide this is time of year and how far away very cool deep water is.


How far away cool water is, will help decide this. This could mean a fast shore break may be the best spot, or a mid lake shallow near deep water. Also keep in mind that how warm the lake is will change the situation.

Normally people think "mid lake structure" during the warm season because most of our home lakes are gradual drops at the shore and the midlake structure is near/closer to the deeper cool water. But in the BWCA, that is not always the case. you can have a 60 foot hole 20 yards off the shore. This may be the coolest water in the lake...therefore starting shallow on the SHORE would make more sense than midlake structure that gradually fades away and is a long way from the very cool water.

Remember these toothy critters want shallow, cool, low light water with FOOD in it. If its bright out...they will go deeper to get away from the light. (wind will bring them shallower as the light doesnt penerate the surface very easy when its windy) They want it cool. This means keeping deeper water close if they need to retreat to a cool spot. this means something that will attract bait fish. That could be structure or it could be water temps or it could be shore. (or all three)

Many times we have found this "combination" right next to shore. I remember a trip several years ago on XYZ lake in the BWCA. We tied the front of the canoe to a tree growing out from the face of the rocks on the shoreline. the back of the canoe was in 30+ feet of water. The lake channel ran from shallow on one side to deep right against this "wall". it had shade, cool water and a wall to hold the bait fish. We stopped fishing after i think we finally caught all the fish it was holding. For several hours we caught a fish every 5-10 minutes. The time of day didnt matter and the light didnt matter. To this day i can not paddle past a cliff face with deep water under it without wetting a line to check it. Often we dont find the same result as we do on that one spot. I believe this is because THIS is the deep spot, even though its right at the shore. All of the water close by is shallow/warm water and not protected by the sun during the day. The underwater wall has several spots that jut out making small ledges, perfect to hold bait fish and also a great comfort bottom for the walleye, even though they are not really all the way on the true bottom.

The more of these eliments you add together, the better chance your going to find walleye. 2 foot deep water, that is cool and has minnows hiding at night will have as many or more fish than a early morning 15 foot hump that gradually retreats to moderate/deep depths. (typical walleye location)

deeper edges off of islands can produce also.

These are all some great thoughts, thanks to all who contributed!

BP to answer your question, we did have a fish finder, however I can't remember any specific temperature readings. I will say though that the top water was COLD. Like really cold. We went swimming on one of the warmer days and it was almost unbearably cold, we could only last a few minutes to rinse off. So perhaps the water temp was somewhere in the 50s.

quote CBD8080: "These are all some great thoughts, thanks to all who contributed!

BP to answer your question, we did have a fish finder, however I can't remember any specific temperature readings. I will say though that the top water was COLD. Like really cold. We went swimming on one of the warmer days and it was almost unbearably cold, we could only last a few minutes to rinse off. So perhaps the water temp was somewhere in the 50s. "

Im willing to bet that the water temps which were probably very different from the norm had everything to do with the slow fishing.

quote CBD8080: "These are all some great thoughts, thanks to all who contributed!

BP to answer your question, we did have a fish finder, however I can't remember any specific temperature readings. I will say though that the top water was COLD. Like really cold. We went swimming on one of the warmer days and it was almost unbearably cold, we could only last a few minutes to rinse off. So perhaps the water temp was somewhere in the 50s.

"

Thats really interesting. I just heard that 2 harbors water temp was 33 degrees 3 weeks ago! Thats amazing. Duluth was at mid 60's...yet the surface temp in TH was that low still!

To be honest, one of the reasons we like to do the annual fishing trip in mid August, like we are this year, is because we know the situation will always (except this year) be the same. I know its not the "prime walleye time", but knowing one variable will always be constant on every trip helps really save on the treasure hunting. Even on an early or late spring, bu August the temps have usually balanced out to what ever they are each year. Knowing the water temp from year to year is the same in August helps a TON. i think it makes up for fishing in a time of year that can be harder to find them.

I think this years trip could be something special. I am thinking this explains alot of the reports saying fishing was amazing or very poor, with not alot in between. I would guess the fish are not as spread out as they normally could be this time of year. That means feast or famine, depending on if you find these groups of fish.


Me likey likey!

the other issue i find with crankbaits, is you are usually just guessing at what depth you are at when a suspended walleye takes it. speed and dept can vary. unless you had a few big splitshot on your line to make sure you were going deeper than 8-10 feet its hard to say. but to catch a suspended one by accident and then try to jig that area, maybe they weren't on bottom where your jig head would be. we always jig. find any island, shoreline, whatever that is a natural funnel between bodies of water and you cant go wrong. then its just finding out at what depth and what they are hitting on.

Did you try any slip bobber fishing from camp? Many times we catch more walleyes early morning or very late in the evening on slip bobbers (lighted bobbers late) and leeches right from our campsite than we catch from the canoes. This year we were on Basswood in early June and hammered the walleyes (3 to 8.5 lbs.) this way. Of course we may have gotten lucky with the timing-water temps were around 58,very few mayflies were hatching, and the weather was cloudy and rainy a lot. Dave