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