If you can only fish one spot, area\ structure for a certain fish, during a specific time of the year, where you would you fish?

For example......

Walleye - mid to late May over mud flats with emerging weeds in about 15 feet of water.
Northern Pike - early spring in the back of a bay
Lake trout - early spring along shoreline flats
Smallmouth - late May, for numbers I would fish a spot with moving water, for size I would probably look just outside of the typical spawning areas in about 10 to 12 FOW.

walleye, main lake points, mid June with water temps in the 60's.
Pike, anywhere, anytime.
smallmouth, small to mid-size bays with incoming water from smaller warmer lakes, late May.
Lake trout, main lake points with access to deep water late may into early June.

Agate Bay Reef, shad raps, November full moon, walleyes, 1994. Hope that's not too specific...:)

For Walleye I look for shallow water flats close to deeper water, main lake points, wind blown shorelines, and anywhere there is moving water - even channels between islands and shore. We mostly trip at the beginning of June so I like dark lake bottom areas for places to start. Concentrating shallow before moving deeper if needed.

Smallmouths we mostly target shorelines. We have found it honestly doesn't matter as they are usually more than willing to bite. If it looks fishy (trees down, rocks, weedy, etc) we usually find smallmouth nearby.

Northern Pike generally just take care of themselves. We don't go out of our way to catch them but usually get our share by accident.

I've fished all over the midwest most of my life and based on that experience I found BWCA fishing to be relatively easy. Almost all lakes experience very light fishing pressure so fish pretty much "act like fish should" making them relatively easy to catch compared to most places.

Brookies in Streams - Run to Riffle Transition - end of season.
Brookies in Lakes - Drop off shoreline end of season
Lake Trout - Drop off shoreline end of season
Walleye - Early Season large inlets
Northern Pike - Early Season large inlets
SMB - End of season, feeding flats near deep water

Where do you have 15' mud bottom with emerging weeds in May? Up north at least...

Great question, Quetico Mike! I took a little different approach:

1) As a kid, I'd chose the St. Joe River in late fall along the Idaho/Montana border not too far from where I grew up. The best was fly-fishing at sunset with a size 18 bucktail caddis. 100 fish per person per day were possible. No giants but crystal clear mountain streams...I am haunted by waters.

2) When I lived in Wyoming, Wind River Canyon (June) to the Wedding of the Waters and then float into Thermapolis (February/March) using a fly and technique that can never be named in a public forum. :) It is likely you'll catch brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout on the same day using the same setup.

3) Now that I live in the midwest, I can't get enough of the walleye, bass, pike action in the BWCA. Fishing mostly with my daughters, the topwater fishing (late May/early June) has been our favorite so mostly bass and pike. We do jig/troll for walleye and lakers but there has been a lot to learn and we are still playing catchup - special shout out to Quetico Mike for sharing his articles, hints, and suggestions...certainly sped up the learning curve for us!

cyclones30: "Where do you have 15' mud bottom with emerging weeds in May? Up north at least..."

I can't give the exact lake, but it is a shallow lake in Quetico. 15 feet is the deepest area on the lake. I am just guessing on the depth, it may be 12 FOW there (I don't have a depth finder). But this mud flat has big payoffs on numbers in late May. All I know is there are times that if you didn't pull up a walleye, your jig would be muddy with an occasional small string of weed. One time I caught 4 walleye for brunch before my partner could even make a cast. He started to string the first one on and I had another before he was done. This happened on the next two casts. I would drop the leech jig to the bottom, reel up maybe a foot and felt a tick at the end of the line each time. My partner strung up 4 before he could make a cast. After that he asked if he can at least make some casts before heading back to camp. I think he caught around 12 and I picked up another 18 in the next 30 to 45 minutes. I was throwing a gulp leech on 1/8 oz. black head jig, and the fish were so hungry I kept using the same soft plastic until there was nothing left. At the end I was using a chunk of leftover black plastic that resembled nothing and about the size of my thumb nail and they were still hitting it. Year after year it is the most consistent spot we have ever walleye fished.

walleyejunky: "For Walleye I look for shallow water flats close to deeper water, main lake points, wind blown shorelines, and anywhere there is moving water - even channels between islands and shore. We mostly trip at the beginning of June so I like dark lake bottom areas for places to start. Concentrating shallow before moving deeper if needed.


Smallmouths we mostly target shorelines. We have found it honestly doesn't matter as they are usually more than willing to bite. If it looks fishy (trees down, rocks, weedy, etc) we usually find smallmouth nearby.


Northern Pike generally just take care of themselves. We don't go out of our way to catch them but usually get our share by accident.


I've fished all over the midwest most of my life and based on that experience I found BWCA fishing to be relatively easy. Almost all lakes experience very light fishing pressure so fish pretty much "act like fish should" making them relatively easy to catch compared to most places."

If you can only fish one walleye spot which one would you choose?
Same with smallmouth, which one spot?

cyclones30: "Where do you have 15' mud bottom with emerging weeds in May? Up north at least..."

Do you have one spot for any of the four species?

We typically spend most of our time focusing on walleyes and generally our trips fall in the late June through August timeframe. With that said we are generally fishing extended points and off shore structure with deep water close by. We generally start searching in about 12 fow and slide down to about 28 fow until we locate fish. Even though we often find fish in 30+ fow I don't like fishing there because of the threat of barotrauma to the fish. In the BWCA I typically use a 3/8 oz. jig tipped with a salted shiner. In Quetico the same jig with a soft plastic. Jigging and ripping rap style baits also work very well for us. This pattern seems to hold true for about any lake up there that time of year with obviously some lakes and locations better than others.

Smallmouth: casting to shorelines in the early morning or late evening, when accurate casting is rewarded.

Walleye: either a strait formed by islands or an island and a shoreline when the wind is pushing water through it or below a waterfall.

Lakers: I don't fish them deep because I can't release them, so early season shallows.

Pike: Cabbage!

Musky: Again, a strait on a windy day or lily pads.

I mainly only target Smallmouth and Walleye. I will begin targeting lake trout more in future trips and chase some bigger ones. I do not have any of my own intel to share though. I have only targeted pike a handful of times in my life.

Walleye: 8-15 fow in mid to late May. Have found some amazing post spawn bites on rock bars or underwater reefs/ humps this time of year.

Smallmouth: 5-10 fow or less early June. shoreline structure post spawn (don't like fishing them on beds) rock rubble, boulders, timber, really any good fish holding habitat.

BWfishingfanatic12: "I mainly only target Smallmouth and Walleye. I will begin targeting lake trout more in future trips and chase some bigger ones. I do not have any of my own intel to share though. I have only targeted pike a handful of times in my life.


Walleye: 8-15 fow in mid to late May. Have found some amazing post spawn bites on rock bars or underwater reefs/ humps this time of year.


Smallmouth: 5-10 fow or less early June. shoreline structure post spawn (don't like fishing them on beds) rock rubble, boulders, timber, really any good fish holding habitat. "

As we take the vast majority of our trips in late May or early June to capitalize on the great fishing, my answers would be almost identical to BW fishing fanatic.

We do have a nice lake trout lake that we hit once or twice by day tripping on our trips. We drift and throw spoons and spinners and catch the majority of lakers in 10-20 feet of water as the lure is coming closer to the canoe.