DAY 4 – Our first full day and after a quick breakfast we were ready to fish the mid lake reefs. But the wind said no and so we headed for the relative protection of the NE arm. It took maybe 2 casts at our first stop, drifting across another windblown point for dad to catch the first musky, a low to mid 30s with a lot of spirit and great markings. Probably the first time it had ever been caught and handled. As the day progressed, dad continued to steal the show by catching 3 more skis, despite fishing out of the stern. However, I caught the northern for our shorelunch, so we’ll call that a push.

One aspect of WCPP we really enjoyed was the ability to shorelunch where ever we wanted, not being restricted to campsites like in BWCA. This allowed us to bring our foodpack (we didn’t want to leave it for the camp critters anyways) with us each day and we were able to eat whenever/where ever we wanted. Most importantly, we did not have to go back to camp for lunch allowing us to fish a lot larger areas of the lake.

Around this point, a pattern was emerging that anytime we found cabbage, we found at least one fish. Coming in, we were only able to identify rock structures but now we were fishing fast, looking for weedbeds while focusing on saddles, islands and main lake adjacent bays. If there was a fish on the spot, it would come out on the first or second cast. Only one fish over the trip was what I would call a slow follow. Every other one came in looking like it was ready to eat. The water was clear and seeing the fish, even sitting down was never a problem. We had to institute a limit on figure 8s so we didn’t spend our whole time watching them chase, as cool as it was.

One fish went around for many minutes and 50+ turns easy, and still looked like it wanted to eat. By the end of the trip, five 8s seemed to be the magic number. If the fish didn't eat by then, it wasn't going to regardless of how it looked. One of these that dad brought up, just before lunch, was our first fish we deemed to be over 40”. To this point, most have been in the low to mid 30s, which was a little disappointing. I knew coming in that this far north the fish weren’t going to be large, but I had hoped for the average to be upper 30s with a couple low 40s but that wasn’t what we were seeing. As the evening fell, I finally got on the board with the fish that flew into the canoe. Once I managed to subdue and release it, no small feat in a canoe with the fish behind you, a debate quickly ensued whether or not that should count as a fish landed, and progressed into the definition of landing a fish. The matter was later mute as I got two more fish to eat that night on the way back to camp. We went to bed again, feeling pretty good.

DAY 5 – Our second full fishing day started like the last, we headed out to the main basin only to encounter winds from the south again. We beast mode paddled to the south, island hopping working our way to try and find new, protected water. We were able to fish a couple spots including ‘airplane reef’ where my dad brought up the largest fish yet, in the low to mid 40s. She tried to eat in the figure eight, but my dad saw the gills flare and twitched, pulling it away. Big bummer. Soon after some dark clouds appeared over the trees and we double timed it back to camp, a trip that went a lot quicker surfing with the waves. The weather was more bark than bite and before long we got back on the water. With a good chunk of the day gone, we stayed around the northern part of the lake and spent more time fishing the structure close to camp. A couple nice pike and a mid to upper 30” ski capped off our night.

As a side note, while we did have some baits with trebble hooks, to mitigate risk (being several days away from more than a first aid kit) by making unhooking easier for us and the fish we used spinnerbaits almost exclusively. They fish well and are easy to run high, low, fast, slow and are great going through weeds or riding over rocks. And when retrieved with a high rod tip they can be bulged on the surface. Plus another feature of theirs is they don’t put up much resistance when reeling in. This is something of importance when fishing out of a canoe, because large baits will pull you to your cast as much as you pull the bait in. And it saves your wrists too. I did bring a double 10 thinking the fish wouldn’t be able to resist, but it actually under-performed the few times it was out only getting one follow.

As far as lure colors, I think they are more for the fisherman and like to keep it simple. My philosophy is natural colors in clear water, bright colors in dark with metal blades when the suns out and painted when its cloudy or dark. Willow blades if you want to go deep or fast, colorado if you want to keep it high or go slow. For this trip, with the clear water and mostly sunny days, I probably threw white/nickel with a single colorado 75% of the time. I'm also a big fan of putting twister tails on bucktails and spinnerbaits as well, so every bait gets some type of teaser which, in my opinion, turns a few extra follows into bites.

And the winds we were encountering weren’t much of ones either. I’m guessing in these couple days 10 to 15mph was the most we had. But given the large water to our south, the waves were able to build up and it was difficult to get more than a cast or two in before being pushed to shore unless we found spots we could fish as we drifted by. If we had been in a boat, I would have called it about perfect. A trolling motor would have had no issue, but despite our paddling prowess’s, we remained limited in a canoe.

DAY 6 – Our day started well as headed to the south east section of the north basin and dad caught an upper 30s right off the bat. Not much later we caught our shore lunch pike that was quickly filleted and stashed for latter. We knew we would be catching a lot of pike this trip but what we didn’t realize was how hard it would be to catch northern small enough to eat. Our practice of selective harvest is one where we don’t kill medium to big fish unless they bleed badly. Even if I have a group, I’ll keep 2 to 3 smaller fish than one larger one. And having to feed just two of us this trip, we targeted fish that were 20-24” and they were surprisingly hard to come by. Almost every pike was in the low 30”s, although I found it odd we never got a big one over 40.

The day then took a little turn for the worse. Over the summer while I was looking for information on irregular, I found out that a certain resort had a couple of boats stashed on the lake for fly in fishing. So for the second time in our trip, we watched a plane land on the lake and taxi over to where the boat stash was. A half hour later two motor boats were buzzing around the lake like mad bees, breaking the silence we had been enjoying for almost a week now. They were fairly courteous, slowing down for the around us, but they were anywhere and everywhere and it was frustrating to be paddling towards a spot just to have a boat come out of nowhere and get there first. We were glad to see them leave. While they were not too interested to share notes, one boat did mention they caught a 44” fish. We added another nice upper 30 fish in the evening while missed a few more and turned in.

DAY 7 – Our last full day and again, a good wind from the south. Another interesting trend had emerged by this point. While the fish were aggressive when they followed, a cast back or revisiting the spot a half hour after, or even the next day, would result in nothing. It was very unusual given our musky experience. Because of this, we decided to head to the west part of the lake, solely to fish fresh water. We ended up finding some nice spots, and moving several fish. I even brought up the largest fish of the trip, an easy mid 40 that came out of a no where deadmans land of 2 ft and nothing in the back end of a long narrow bay. Go figure. I got her to take a swipe boatside but figure 8ing in that shallow water was difficult and in the end, I had to be happy just to see a good fish.