Looking for some guidance/tips/encouragement for fishing in Poplar-lake area of the Gunflint.

Did a trip last year the second week of June (Mayfly hatch that week) and fished Horseshoe, Caribou, and Gaskin—between 4 grown men, we caught ONE walleye. Not a single other fish the entire trip.

We tried jigging in 8-15 feet of water with mister twisters on 1/8 and 1/4 oz jigs, slip bobbers with leeches and worms at the same depth range, and were tossing various crank-baits and spinners from the shore out for smallies and northern.

This yielded one landed fish (walleye) and 2 or 3 strikes. It was a disheartening and dismal fishing experience. One of the more frustrating fishing trips I've ever had.

Weather was good all week with the occasional downpour. No fronts or anything major. Perhaps we were fishing too deep?

After we finished our trip, we talked to Mike at Rockwoods and he mentioned they had slaughtered walleye all that week fishing in 1-5' of water.

We will be in the same vicinity this year fishing on Meeds, Omega, Henson, Allen, Pillbery, Gaskin, Horseshoe.

I plan on bringing a selection of 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 oz jig heads, mister twisters, slip bobber rigs, shad-raps, spinner baits, and Mepps/Rooster Tails in various sizes and colors. I think this is the right approach to tackle, and provides more than enough options for catching walleye, smallies, and northern.

Looking for some help on how to fish these lakes, tactics, etc—it would be nice to catch more than one fist this year.

Edit to add: Rod(s): 6' Medium & Medium Light spinning. Line-weight 6-10lb mono and braided spread out amongst the group.

Im sorry to hear that, it sounds unbelievable! I dont think you could possibly do as poorly next time. I went in the last week of june and I do remember some hearing about poor fishing leading up to our trip. It worked out well for us in the end.

My advice is, when the fish aren't biting, change it up!

I always feel obligated to ask what weight line and rod someone was using when its unproductive. I really value having a light setup for feeling bites.

quote murphylakejim: "Im sorry to hear that, it sounds unbelievable! I dont think you could possibly do as poorly next time. I went in the last week of june and I do remember some hearing about poor fishing leading up to our trip. It worked out well for us in the end.


My advice is, when the fish aren't biting, change it up!


I always feel obligated to ask what weight line and rod someone was using when its unproductive. I really value having a light setup for feeling bites."

It was truly dumbfounding. I feel as though we did a good job of mixing up tackle.

My approach this year is to start from the shore and either jig out or set a slip bobber at 2', and work my way out deeper at intervals until something hits, and then hammer that location/depth until it stops producing. We completely ignored the shoreline last year. I think were we went wrong was fishing at possibly a depth that was too deep from the get go.

I edited my original post to account for our rods and line.

That time of year you typically want to be fishing bays and shoreline structure. If you were fishing mid lake structure that might account for your lack of action. If you were working the shorelines and not catching fish on those lakes at that time of year I don't know what to say. Maybe you were spooking the fish.

Maybe jerkbaits for smallmouth that time of year.. Clear water, fluorocarbon line might help for spookie walleyes

I've had my trip land in the middle of a massive bug hatch once and it absolutely killed the fishing. We fished hard from about 9am-after dark each day and we caught exactly 3 fish in 3 days. We tried it all ranging from very shallow to very deep and every presentation we could think of. Caught 1 fish on a slip bobber and leech, caught one trolling a small crankbait, and one nice walleye casting a large 5 of diamonds spoon.

My suggestion for you would be to fish a larger range of water. 8-15 feet really isn't a huge range as early walleye can be quite shallow yet. I've caught them in less than 3'.

I would for sure target shoreline structure first. Early in the year pay attention to wind direction. Fish the shorelines that have had the wind blowing into them. The wind stacks up the warm water against that shoreline which will attract bait fish and the walleye/smallies/pike you are looking for. I like to start by trolling a spinner with like bait first to locate some fish. Then once i have a general area pinned down I'll pick it apart with jigs or slip bobbers.

If you are on fish and the bite stops try moving deeper or shallower. The bite will generally start shallow and then move deeper throughout the day and then move shallower in the evening.

Beyond that I can't really give tips on specific spots but I'll assure you that there are fish to be caught in those lakes.

quote nofish: "I've had my trip land in the middle of a massive bug hatch once and it absolutely killed the fishing. We fished hard from about 9am-after dark each day and we caught exactly 3 fish in 3 days. We tried it all ranging from very shallow to very deep and every presentation we could think of. Caught 1 fish on a slip bobber and leech, caught one trolling a small crankbait, and one nice walleye casting a large 5 of diamonds spoon.


My suggestion for you would be to fish a larger range of water. 8-15 feet really isn't a huge range as early walleye can be quite shallow yet. I've caught them in less than 3'.


I would for sure target shoreline structure first. Early in the year pay attention to wind direction. Fish the shorelines that have had the wind blowing into them. The wind stacks up the warm water against that shoreline which will attract bait fish and the walleye/smallies/pike you are looking for. I like to start by trolling a spinner with like bait first to locate some fish. Then once i have a general area pinned down I'll pick it apart with jigs or slip bobbers.


If you are on fish and the bite stops try moving deeper or shallower. The bite will generally start shallow and then move deeper throughout the day and then move shallower in the evening.


Beyond that I can't really give tips on specific spots but I'll assure you that there are fish to be caught in those lakes.
"

Perfect. This is very helpful, thanks. I suspect we were too deep, and not trying a wide enough range of depths. I'm not a walleye fisherman by nature, so I'm learning how to fish this species. When I have it's always been in deeper water. (Rainy Lake, 17-22' in early July)

Scratch Omega off your list.....concentrate on Meeds, Caribou, Gaskin and Horseshoe.

We were also in that very area during the second week of June. I'll second your comments. The fishing was as poor as I've ever experienced.... anywhere. Had it been my first trip into canoe country I would have certainly been questioning all the hype folks put forward about the great fishing up there. But, I know better.

I think two things had crucial effect on fishing that week. One, as you mentioned, was a fly hatch. That's never a good thing for fishing and there's not much you can do about it.

The second was water levels and temps. The water levels in the area were very high last June, especially in the Horseshoe area. All the rain in late May and early June kept the water temps a bit lower than normal. That week was the first real sunshine and calm weather the area had experienced in several weeks.

I couldn't tell you how many hours my son and I spent on Horseshoe that weekend but we eventually found walleye pretty shallow for mid June at around 7-8 FOW suspended at about 5-6 feet. Sometimes even closer to the surface. Of course when walleye are that shallow mid-day fishing is pretty fruitless. We caught everything either just before sunrise, or from about a half hour before sunset until well after dark with our best luck on leach tipped night glow jigs with slip set-ups.

Sorry to hear you did not do well - we were on those lakes for the first time 1st week of June and did very well - All fish were close to shore and eyes were shallow - lost of rain but was able to work around it - by far best lake for us was Meeds - only problem with Meeds was all the small Pike - never caught any nice ones but you could not keep them away from your line!

All of those lakes are within close range of each other, another one you could try in the area would be vista for eyes. Try shallow first and work your way outward is usually a good rule of thumb when trying to find active fish. Anywhere there is an inlet or outlet always seems to be productive in the bwca. I would either start there or along windswept shorelines if the wind has been blowing a consistent direction.

If you hit a shutdown period for fishing it may not make a lot of difference where you are. But I was going to suggest Vista in that area too but BB beat me to it. I have been in this area a lot and the two best lakes are definitely Meeds and Vista - Meeds for smallies, lots of them and some nice fish too. Vista for walleyes, good numbers and some occasional big fish.

The smallies on Meeds are hard not to catch in normal conditions. On Vista there is a very small island just north of the nice southern campsite...drift that island up to the next small island and really focus on the south side of that island. If you didn't have good luck with eyes I would be surprised. Lindy rigs or jigs tipped with leeches, crawlers, etc. If you happen to get that nice southern campsite on Vista, try fishing from the site - on one trip the first cast with a Rapala brought in a nice 5 lb walleye.

Caribou and Horseshoe are decent lakes too, just might have to work a little harder. No experience with Gaskin. Good Luck.

I was in the area June 18-21 as well last year and had similar luck as well. It wasn't quite as bad as yours but between 3 people we only caught about 30 fish in 4 days of fishing so it was pretty terrible. I was trying to figure out why the fishing was so bad too I thought it would have been long after the mayfly hatch but maybe with cold water temperatures it was just late last year. we were definitely perplexed too.

We tried a wide range of depths from shoreline to 15 feet or so so we tried drop offs shoreline everything you could think of too. crankbaits, jigs, slip bobbers, spinners, lindy rig, etc. We got on walleyes a couple times for the twilight bight but they were EXTREMELY finicky. We cast out slip bobbers and they wouldn't bite on those which was shocking. I had the most luck vertically jigging or just casting out a little bit. It seemed like you had to get it right in front of them to induce a strike. I think I'll go back sometime but it didn't give me too much desire to return. but it could have just been the bug hatch.

I usually give an area two chances. Horseshoe and Caribou were extremely crowded so don't know if I'll go back to those at all.Henson is great for smallies! Omega was one of the prettiest lakes I've seen with a 4.5 star campsite. only caught two fish there though but we had the lake to ourselves. Gaskin was probably my favorite and I heard so many good things about it but it was a frustrating trip but maybe it was just the bug hatch.