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Boundary Waters Quetico ForumGroup Forum: Quetico AfficionadosMid-September walleyes
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10/23/2016 07:48PM
One of the foursome that I have been engaging in risky behavior with since kindergarten was pretty crippled up this year so we planned an 8-day/no portage trip the second week in September spent entirely on the Quetico side of Basswood Lake where we split our time between Ranger Point and the White Island area.
The weather was changeable, something different every day, and the fishing was spotty but we caught some nice smallmouth and walleyes. No lakers although there were a lot of fish hanging out around 35-40' in Ranger Bay. We couldn't really get them to hit jigs or spoons, even when we could keep the canoe in one place without an anchor. Lots of pike, some pretty good-sized, including one very chunky 40 incher.
I spent some time photographing the old ranger cabin and outbuildings on Ranger Point and will post some of those later.
Because we were going to be on some big water notorious for rowdy behavior we rented 18' Wenonah Champlains from LaTourell's instead of our usual SR Quetico 17s. Although there were some grumblings about the Champlains by the time we made it back to Prairie Portage we were glad we had them.
Our towboat pickup September 19 at Washington Island cancelled because of the predicted gale-force winds so we rigged up a sail, tied the canoes loosely together and paddled out into the main channel and took off with 20-30 mph winds from the west at our backs (we have done this before so it wasn't a totally uninformed decision).
What we hadn't factored in was what Mindy LaTourell calls the "Devil's Throat" as you approach Bailey Bay. The wind and waves jacked up there and we were lucky to make it into Inlet Bay without dumping or crashing into one of the numerous rocky points along the way. It was too wild to even get a snapshot once we got out in the main channel--no time to take your paddle out of the water if you were the steersman or to stop bailing otherwise. Even the tow with Bob Latourell back to Moose Lake from Prairie Portage was intense.
I haven't had time to process everything yet but at the rate I'm going I'll never finish them.
The weather was changeable, something different every day, and the fishing was spotty but we caught some nice smallmouth and walleyes. No lakers although there were a lot of fish hanging out around 35-40' in Ranger Bay. We couldn't really get them to hit jigs or spoons, even when we could keep the canoe in one place without an anchor. Lots of pike, some pretty good-sized, including one very chunky 40 incher.
I spent some time photographing the old ranger cabin and outbuildings on Ranger Point and will post some of those later.
Because we were going to be on some big water notorious for rowdy behavior we rented 18' Wenonah Champlains from LaTourell's instead of our usual SR Quetico 17s. Although there were some grumblings about the Champlains by the time we made it back to Prairie Portage we were glad we had them.
Our towboat pickup September 19 at Washington Island cancelled because of the predicted gale-force winds so we rigged up a sail, tied the canoes loosely together and paddled out into the main channel and took off with 20-30 mph winds from the west at our backs (we have done this before so it wasn't a totally uninformed decision).
What we hadn't factored in was what Mindy LaTourell calls the "Devil's Throat" as you approach Bailey Bay. The wind and waves jacked up there and we were lucky to make it into Inlet Bay without dumping or crashing into one of the numerous rocky points along the way. It was too wild to even get a snapshot once we got out in the main channel--no time to take your paddle out of the water if you were the steersman or to stop bailing otherwise. Even the tow with Bob Latourell back to Moose Lake from Prairie Portage was intense.
I haven't had time to process everything yet but at the rate I'm going I'll never finish them.
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