-Mid 60s, Sunny with mild wind throughout the day.

- We had a picture-perfect weather day with beautiful sunshine, mild wind, great temperatures for fishing. I was itching to have some topwater action and some more active presentations to catch fish. Up to this point we had mainly been slip bobber fishing, trolling lindy rigs, and dragging jigs to catch a majority of the fish to this point. I was hopping for some bass on topwater spooks or the whopper plopper, wacky worms, crank baits, ned rigs, and other more cast and retrieve style baits. So, that was the plan for this day.

We got some breakfast and relaxed around camp for little bit before heading out fishing most of the day. We got fishing mid-morning around camp. It was calm so I broke out the topwater for the first time. Had a few blow ups but was not really connecting on them. Managed to catch an upper teens Smallie on one of them but was not too consistent of action. (I have yet to get in or really good topwater action up in the Boundary Waters). So, I put the topwater away and broke out the ned rig. (I always thought this bait was stupid but after trying it last fall and this spring I have quickly became a believer in it). I would honestly say it is probably my go to Smallmouth bait now.

Safe to say that the ned rig did not disappoint. That is all I threw for the next few hours. My brother threw a combination of a wacky worm, fluke, and Texas rigged crayfish plastic. We fished some shoreline points and picked up a couple decent Smallmouth bass. About a half mile from camp we started fishing an underwater bar that come up within a couple feet of the surface. We fished the drop off/ ledge on the first pass with no luck. Then as the wind drifted us back towards the structure we started casting up on top of the bar (2-4 feet of water) and caught several very nice smallies, including a couple just shy of 20”. (a 19.5 or 19.75” bass is not a 20” but we caught 3 that were just short of the “trophy barrier” in my mind but did not stretch to tape out at 20).

We continued to fish boulders and other shoreline structure and pinch points having consistent action along most of the shoreline. Then we decided to fish a bay with good rock and timber structure that we had done well at in the past. Shortly after starting into the bay I hooked a nice smallmouth just off a down tree and several bigger bass were chasing him as I fought him into the next. He was an 18” and 2 of the bass that were in a frenzy chasing him as I reeled him in were much bigger. We spent quite a bit of time trying to catch them but to no avail. They likely got spooked by the boat. Just down the shoreline a little further we caught a couple other bass off a big deadfall and Brad looks down and spots a giant Smallie cruising around. We tried casting the ned rig and Texas rig at him but could not get the proper presentation to elicit a strike. That is when Brad switched to the Wacky work and cast it out and let it drift down to where he was at in the water column. First cast, Brad twitches in right past him and he pounces on the worm. Brad fought him for about a minute and after a big run at the surface the big bronzeback shook the lure leaving us marveled at how big the bass was but bummed we could not land him. We both estimated it to be the bigger than any Smallie we had caught on the trip so far. We fished a little more of the bay before heading back to camp for lunch. I would guess Brad and I each caught around 25 bass in the morning period of 3-4 hours. The other group did pretty well too but it sounded like they did not do quite as well as we did that morning.

We got some lunch and decided to hike to the top on the cliff behind our campsite. The view from the top was awesome and it was nice to get a little something else in other than fishing. After our workout we were dirty and sweaty, so we decided to canoe out to an island to do some swimming and rinse off. It wasn’t overly warm, but we knew it would be refreshing. It is amazing how clear the Knife Lake water is and we could see multiple smallmouth bass swimming around. After we were done swimming Zack said he wanted to show us his go to method for Smallies. He waded into the water and caught a crayfish. He hooked it on a 3/0 EWG hook and cast it out into the water. It twitched threw the water for no more than a couple second before a Smallie raced out from the rocks and inhaled it. I did not realize he had been doing this, but this got my interest peaked to this method. He caught several more in short order convincing me to give this a try for future trips. I suppose you can’t get more realistic/ natural than a crayfish twitching through the water column. I am curious if other fisherman have tried this as well?

We relaxed most of the afternoon around camp reading, napping in hammocks, and of course slip bobber fishing as well. It seemed I had caught most of the fish around the campsite as this was not near as productive as previous days and this method slowly declined throughout our stay. The bass might have been pushing out deeper as well naturally. However, it is still fun to cast out and I love catching fish on slip bobbers from camp.

We had dinner early and headed out fishing for the late afternoon/ evening. We caught a couple more Smallmouth as we made out way to our Walleye spot out from the nearby campsite that we had fished in the rain a couple days previously. We did well again but the average size was still on the smaller side (12-16”). There is quick access to deep water so feel that big ones should feed on that flat/ structure as well but the size was pretty consistent for us. The bite slowly tapered off, so we elected to move on down the lake to where we did so well the previous evening. I would be curious to try that first area for the evening slip bobber bite to see if some bigger Walleye would push up onto that structure.

We anchored near where we were the previous night but were not quite in the same spot. It was another good night but not near as good as the previous evening. I would say between the 2 of us we caught around 25 Walleye and Smallmouth bass. (a couple rock bass and perch too). We fished for a couple hours but were talking a lot about why we thought it was so different just one night a part. It was similar weather so that should not have impacted them too much. We were in a little different location, but I would say we were not more than 50feet from our previous nights spot. However, sometimes that can make all the difference I suppose with being right on the end of the structure versus being closer to the middle. It was still a good night of fishing. On the way back to camp we briefly fished a pinch point between islands and shore in 10 FOW and I caught my biggest walleye of the trip so far at 23”. Another good night of fishing and enjoyable fire back at camp. On this trip the bugs would come out for like 15 minutes and then disappear. It was unlike anything I had experienced before but it was very welcome.