I'm a social worker and was up on Gunflint Lake over the last weekend for a 4 night trip with some clients. We had a great trip, but pretty dismal fishing and I'm curious as to what we could've done differently.

We stayed at a resort and did quite a bit of shore fishing using raps and live bait. Much of our shore fishing was on some large rocky flats with little structure to hold the fish so there was not any surprise that we weren't doing all that well there. We did go out in a boat one day and threw everything we had at walleye, bass, pike and got NOTHIN. I drifted across some humps, fished channels, casted into shore with raps, spoons, lindy rigs, spinners, bobbers with leeches and nightcrawlers and nothing was doing.

I'm usually up in the bw's in May and June and always do well. What gives with later summer fishing and what can I do next time for more success?

Thanks!

Deeper... Walter doesn't like the sun or the warmth.

what lake ? not all bw lakes are created equal, especially entry point lakes.

My family has stayed at gunflint lodge quite a bit. Not sure if that's where you stayed. I hear that Gunflint has walleyes but they are hard to find. We have caught northerns off the dock in late june. We have always had good luck on small mouth bass going into Magentic Lake. Right after the narrows either side has deep channel with bolders. Nothing huge but entertaining.

2 questions, do you know what the water temp was, and is there islands and deep structure on this lake thats close to the deepest water in the lake.

A few issues that I see; this time of year walters are most likely going to be found on mid lake humps and deep reefs, gunflint is not a great walter lake, and they tend to prefer big offerings in the fall. Humps are usually found using depth finders, did you have one? Guides rarely fish gunflint, the numbers are not as high as they used to be. And early fall, walters are trying to get their feed bag on, so I would have used some larger shiners to go after them.

If fishing shallower then target sunrise and sunset hours. Otherwise you'll have to find them deep as stated above.

We did not have a fish finder but I used a lake map and my navionics map to drift across some mid lake reefs with raps, lindy rigged leeches and worms. Using shiners makes sense.

Magnetic lake looked promising but we had a hard time getting the smallies to participate.

Lake trout still deep and other fish are in transition,it can be a very hard time to fish.

Gunflint is a laketrout lake. There are large walleye but they dont follow normal patterns. There are large schools of suspended bait fish and the walleye and trout target them. Note the guides go all the way to Northern light lake for walleye...a long day even with a motor boat. Use your sounder to find the bait associated with deep water reefs. I use a downrigger because Im only there in summer. Find the bait! You can catch these trout suspended. This lake doesnt follow the normal idea that walleye and lakers are always at he bottom. Its almost like fishing Superior or Erie in that way. Its a deep trench without alot of structure so when you find it work it! Dont dispair its taken me a whole lot of summers to have success on this lake.