I have made many BW trips in August, and I’m used to fishing under those conditions in the lakes there. However, I have never fished predominantly lake trout lakes during August. I have read many threads about fishing in these lakes and trip reports as well, but most of them refer to June. I’m also plenty familiar with various lake trout lures and techniques. I’m hoping to get a little bit more specific information to later summer like mid August. I have two main questions.

1- Other than these 3 larger lakes, are there any others on the route that I should make sure to fish that time of year? Also, are there better areas of those larger lakes to target in mid-August? We plan 2 nights on each of those lakes and will have plenty of time to day trip to nearby lakes.

2- taking lake trout out of the equation, what lakes fish best for other species- bass, pike, walleye. I know what DNR lake finder says, but I’m hoping for some lake recommendations to narrow the field if LT are not working out.

Thanks for any info you can give- need to keep one, potentially two 15 year olds happy, so the extra intel is appreciated.

If suggest swinging through Gabi if your not having luck with lakers but those are all good laker lakes. I got into some good sized northern on Gabi last year. It's got some great cliffs as well.

Well the lack of replies here certainly is in support of my initial thoughts- that this route while beautiful and certainly on my list to visit, isn’t a good choice for August if quality fishing is the goal. If that’s the wrong conclusion, feel free to let me know but im already looking at alternate plans.

Thank you OgimaaBines for that nugget though, helpful for sure if/when I do get through here.

naturboy12: "Well the lack of replies here certainly is in support of my initial thoughts- that this route while beautiful and certainly on my list to visit, isn’t a good choice for August if quality fishing is the goal. If that’s the wrong conclusion, feel free to let me know but im already looking at alternate plans.

Thank you OgimaaBines for that nugget though, helpful for sure if/when I do get through here. "

The problem with targeting lakers in August is that there is a high mortality of released fish when they are returned to warm surface waters.

Thanks Arctic, 100% agree. I didn’t plan on this EP, but with having to wait until about 10 days ago to secure my permit, my choices were very limited. I’m going to keep looking for cancellations and possibly end up at a different EP. But that is also part of the reason I wanted to know about non LT fishing as well.

There are some large pike in most of those lakes. The challenge, of course, is finding them.

Nice area, yes very tough to fish for lake trout mid-summer or later. been there tried that in that area.

I think you can still catch trout. If the surface water is very warm, you likely want to stop after you have enough to eat. One way to stress them less is to troll for suspended fish rather than jigging off the bottom.

I've done well on those lakes in late August flat line trolling #9 shad raps. If I were to go back now, I would also use reef runners and flutter spoons with jet divers or snap weights.

Gabimichigami can be very good for trout. I've never got one over about 3#, but I've got several nice pike.

rpike: "I think you can still catch trout. If the surface water is very warm, you likely want to stop after you have enough to eat. One way to stress them less is to troll for suspended fish rather than jigging off the bottom.


I've done well on those lakes in late August flat line trolling #9 shad raps. If I were to go back now, I would also use reef runners and flutter spoons with jet divers or snap weights.


Gabimichigami can be very good for trout. I've never got one over about 3#, but I've got several nice pike."

You can still catch trout but it is tough then. Yes, get enough to eat then quit fishing because summer mortality is high.