On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being "landing trophy-sized walleye" and the like. I'm taking the family in there over July 4th and I'm figuring that it will be tough fishing, to say the least. Although, I've read reports from folks that go back a ways who report it to still be a fairly productive walleye producer. Your rating?

Can't speak to July, but, last trip there in June was a ton of fun. No trophy walleye for us but decent walleye w/o any trouble (15 - 20" every day and a couple of chunky 24" eyes). My son and I (he was 10 at the time) during our last visit boated over 260 fish in one week. Biggest were the 24" eyes, a massive 9# mutant looking largemouth, 2 6# smallmouth, and a couple 35" class northern.

Those are some impressive numbers!

We have fished that lake a lot of times. It holds a good population of eater size walleye in the 19" size. Also it holds a ton of Smallmouth in the 17-19" size. I've also caught a few large pike in the northwestern part. It kind of funny because we know the lake so well we named the islands and fishing spots. If you are looking for trophies this is not your lake. If you are looking for great fishing then stop on by. I would give it a strong 8-9 for that reason.

Ensign is a good fishing lake. We were there in August and did well on SMB (a 20" but no six pounders), LMB (some 17" class fish but no state records), and a few eater walleyes. Bluegill, too. There is an enormous weedbed that holds all kinds of fish on the western half of the lake.
Think weed edges and main lake structure.

Good advice all. I'm thinking of bringing an array of deep diving raps, swimbaits, jigs and shallow runners. I was planning on some topwater action in case nothing else was happening. I'd be happy with eater-size walleyes to be honest, we will only need one, perhaps two for a fish fry and the rest will be released (first, I have to catch them though).

With a group of 7 guys in late June / early July we had a blast fishing the northwest part of the lake for largemouth, smallmouth, and pike on the last 3 days of our trip. We didn't get any noteworthy walleye, but we weren't out on the water at the right time in the right areas. We were on the small island site, and we had so much action fishing for the others that it wasn't necessary to target walleyes.

quote beeeye: "Can't speak to July, but, last trip there in June was a ton of fun. No trophy walleye for us but decent walleye w/o any trouble (15 - 20" every day and a couple of chunky 24" eyes). My son and I (he was 10 at the time) during our last visit boated over 260 fish in one week. Biggest were the 24" eyes, a massive 9# mutant looking largemouth, 2 6# smallmouth, and a couple 35" class northern. "

Did you photograph this 9# largemouth?

quote NorthwoodsHeaven: "

quote beeeye: "a massive 9# mutant looking largemouth,. "

Did you photograph this "9#"largemouth? "

View his three pictures in beeeye's profile area. That might be the one he caught.

It looks like there is no shortage of fish and plenty of structure to hunt them down. Now, I have rethink my tackle strategy.

That is not 9 pounds. 6 pounds at best.

quote c: "That is not 9 pounds. 6 pounds at best."

i dont disagree. but if your gonna knock someones fish size you should sign in first :)

Lord knows ive overestimated fish sizes

No, caught the 6#er on same amazing trip. No pic of the bigger bass, it was bigger than the guy in the photo. Just have to take my word for it, or not, whatever floats your canoe! Just returned from another week in the area and had another great trip. Nothing like the numbers from the last trip on Ensign but we had a great time and boated many nice fish. Big boys came from Ima this year and numbers always have been good on Ensign. Firetiger 4" Rapala was the hot ticket this year. Good fishing to all and take care of this mighty treasure!

Big fish this year went to my son!

I was on Ensign most of last week and fishing was not great at best. The walleyes I caught were caught late in the day on a jig and crawler in 16-18 feet of water. Caught several 22-24 inch northerns on Splash on a daredevil while trolling. The smallies seemed confused, saw lots of beds, some had fish on them, most were empty, caught a few smallies that had bulging tummies. The topwater bite was really slow. I didn't see any crawdads near shore, saw a few schools of minnows near shore. Surface H2O temps were in the lows 60s. Caught some small sunnies on a yellow popper with my spinning rod used like a flyrod. I don't know a lot about smallies but I figured there should have been at least some small males either guarding the nests or waiting the female to come to the nests. All the walleyes were in the 16-17 inch class. FRED

Good report Fred. Thanks. I'm sure that the conditions will change again over the next two weeks when we go in. Someone else commented on Ima in this thread. We may have try a day trip there too if it tanks on Ensign.