A wonderful week has just past here at Mim! Once again a long-standing family has returned and departed with fantastically fond memories of Miminiska lodge. Fishing was great,  with a ton of fish released, both walleye and northern pike. Hot spots still remain at the Walleye Mine, western Shore Lunch Island and Wottom Bay.

This week, we had 3 days hosting a truly international event with guests from New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan, the US and Canada. This group has enjoyed fantastic walleye fishing and has started to see the fall fishing show itself. As evening temperatures cool, we’re seeing a drop in overall water temperatures with many areas dipping below 70 degrees. This is reiterated in fish activity as the northern pike fishing is picking up. The big fish are starting to activate and on Sunday alone, we saw 2 fish released in the 36” category, one on a hot’n’tot and the other on a texas rigged shallow water plastic. Cooler evening fall temps are coming and the fishing is heating up!

A report from the Hansen group:

Fishing hotspots– straight out from the dock to other side of the lake, great fishing at 7-25 feet deep along edge of the weeds, east off the dock about a mile was also very good
On-fire Lures– jig heads pink, white, gold- spoons orange and silver, blue and silver minnow looking spoon
Memorable moments– Bear in the camp, pet seagull
Tips/Things that worked– Fish tacos with cabbage and sriracha mayo

The fishing has been good at SPL. Earlier in the week, we had 2, 40 plus pike caught just past the islands on the sound end of Best Island. Each of them were caught jigging for walleye. The walleye bite is still strong especially in the morning and evenings but is slowing a bit during the heat of the day. Waters levels are low and are now dropping. Looking like they will hit sub-70 degrees this week with our cooler nights! The time for aggressive fall fish is fast approaching, as we are starting to see the turning of the “temperature tides”

From the guests:

“Our trip to Striker’s Point through Wilderness North was fantastic! We had an unbelievable time and caught an absurd amount of fish. From the staff to the fish to the weather, everything was picture perfect for us. We caught a multitude of fish near seagull island and spent a significant amount of time trolling for Pike in Pike’s alley. On our trip we caught a couple of Pike over 25 inches as well as a couple of walleye over 20 inches. Overall, it was an incredible trip and I can’t wait to come back next year!”

We had some great fishing on our first trip to Zig Zag Lake. In total, our group of five caught around 1,000 walleye and a couple hundred pike. We caught two 26-inch walleye and our biggest walleye of the week was 26.5 inches. We also landed three pike over 40 inches, with the largest measuring in at 42 inches and weighing 18.5 pounds, in addition to several northerns in the mid to upper thirties.

Fish could be found all over both Zig Zag and Crescent Lake, we just had to continue to switch things up in order to produce fish consistently. Simply changing the color of your jighead or using a different size twister tail often made a big difference. We tended to find the larger walleye on Crescent Lake, and going bigger often triggered more bites. We had to use 3/8 ounce jigheads for most of the trip due to fishing in 18–25 ft and wind. Going to a five inch twister tail also seemed to catch more walleyes on Crescent. Three inch twister tails and jigging a half of a nightcrawler also worked well for walleye. We caught pike on everything from bucktails to spoons to spinnerbaits to twister tails. The key to catching numbers of pike seemed to be finding submerged weeds, especially in deeper water. Trolling spoons and spinnnerbaits over weed patches in both Zig Zag and Crescent worked well for northerns.

We did spot two moose during the trip, though we couldn’t get very close without spooking them. This was the most peaceful and quiet place we had every been. We did take a short hike on the portage trail by the upper rapids, where we took in the scenery while reeling in beautiful Canadian walleye.

Overall, our first fly-in experience to Zig Zag Lake was a great time. The cabin was in wonderful shape and the new Lund boats and electric start motors were fantastic. Many thanks to the Wilderness North staff for providing us with a memorable trip.

The Trumm Group