Every morning at Bowman Island Lodge on the Ontario side of Lake Superior the day starts with a Gary Lange breakfast. Today was bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. After the more than hearty breakfast my fishing partner Joe Wolthuis made sandwiches and soon we were on our way for lake trout and coaster brook trout.
The mighty Lake Superior was flat. You don’t see this often. On such a day you should take advantage and travel to areas you normally can’t. Joe and I did exactly this and began with a 45 minute boat ride where a cluster of islands are so close together that there’s current running between them. These currents are called “seiches” and are caused but a mix of things from the actual tidal pull that this massive lake has along with strong wind and quick changes in atmospheric pressure.
All trout like current including the coaster brookies of Lake Superior. Last year Joe and I found this location on our last day and learned that large numbers of coasters were attracted to this place. Sure enough, in a matter of a few casts, Joe hooked up.
Coaster brook trout are the oversized lake-dwelling brook trout that once flourished in the Great Lakes. Unfortunately they were overfished and their habitat was so degraded that by the 1970’s they were nearly extinct. Thanks to 40 years of conservation work they are making a strong comeback. Joe and I spent the first two hours of our day fishing the seiches and landed about ten of these beautiful fish.
I’m addicted to lake trout and always have been since I was a kid. After our brookie bash we returned to a tiny rock island we caught lakers at last year. For lakers I fish my 8-weight, the Scientific Anglers Sonar Surf to get deep, a level piece of 30lb Fluoro and a heavy chartreus jig fly. The deep living members of the char family were there!
This may come as a surprise to most, but Lake Superior has four phenotypes or subspecies of lake trout. There’s the lean, humper, siscowet and the redfin. Then to make things confusing, there’s some crossbreeding amongst these. This one Joe is holding is likely the redfin.
While the redfin is somewhat obvious because of the reddish fins and orange hue to the body. The other somewhat obvious would be the siscowet. Siscowets live in super deep water and are especially fat. The one I have here – hmmm. Definitely not the redfin but not sure which of the other three it is. What I do know, this is an absolutely gorgeous specimen!
During the afternoon we caught more coasters then went back to lakers and back to coasters again. We had a truly outstanding day one here on the Ontario side of one of the world’s largest lakes.
One coaster worth mentioning is this one here. By early evening the wind was so strong that managing the boat and fishing was beyond a chore. It was nearly impossible. And being this is only a four day fishing trip; we both want to fish as much as possible.
Not too far from the lodge is a beach with a fast drop off and weeds. Its an ideal place to fish from shore and make a short cast directly into the wind. We ended the day here and I landed this monster coaster.
That’s all she wrote for our first full day. This is an incredible fishery. Gary finished our day off with a porkchop dinner to die for. Our last bite was at nearly 10 PM. Time for bed!
Awesome Jeff, those are some gorgeous fish!