I recently made my annual fall pilgrimage to Lake of the Woods. We have been fishing Lake of the Woods for about 14 years, and out of Nestor Falls for about the last nine years. After this amount of time, averaging probably three weeks a year, you start to have a feeling that you know the area. You feel that you can just go to your favorite fishing spots and literally get after them. I have to admit, that was my feeling as I headed to LOTW this fall.
When I arrived, I couldn't believe the difference in the lake!!!! The water was literally down 5+ feet. I mean, it was literally unbelievable, places that I fished were literally out of the water and the weed beds were literally gone. When I say the the weeds were gone, I mean exactly that. They weren't dead or dying, they were non-existent. Take a look at this picture, the ramp going to the floating dock was literally reversed (pointing up) the spring of last year as the water was so high that wooden skids were actually placed on the fixed dock so that you wouldn't get your feet wet.
In addition to the low lake, my outboard didn't want to run properly which took a day and half to rectify. I am mentioning the outboard problem as it had eaten significantly in to my vacation and I was anxious to make-up the time (which can't be done). I did something, I almost hate to admit, I didn't analyze what had happened to the lake or my fishing spots as a result of the low water. I wanted to get fishing, and quickly (a polite way of saying, stop thinking and just do it!!). I figured that my old spots were always great, so I would just drop back a little and fish them as I always had. It was the quickest way to fish, but not the smartest! I should have taken the time to look for new spots given the change to the lake, but I did not. The result, one 34" pike, for about 2 1/2 days of fishing musky/pike. We even fished with live suckers on quick strike rigs without success. My wife loves to fish for crappies, so we spent a three days doing that with a high degree of success.
Ok, I blew it to a degree. However, I did take advantage of the situation for the purposes of planning ahead which I did want to pass along to you. Low water gives a fisherman a unique opportunity to literally see what he had been fishing in normal to high water, and where he probably could have fished if he would have known what was there. Example:
This use to be submerged, large rock, was very obvious during the low water. I knew this rock was there causing a saddle area between the wall behind it and itself. I had taken a musky out of this location prior. You can see where the water was on the wall behind the rock, the top of the white band the spring of last year.
Here is another location that has been good to me in the past. This spot features a beaver damn, which is now dry-docked and abandoned (right side edge). The point is that you can see why it held fish between the beaver damn sticks and the rocks.
I also found new spots that would hold good potential when the water comes back-up. The water had typically covered all of the rock way back to the trees. Under normal water conditions, a fisherman wouldn't have given it much of a look. I have now filed this spot away, along with many others, for future reference when the water comes back up.
As you can obviously see, I have taken pictures of the spots I fish, as well as the spots I could fish. Pictures do not forget and can be used in the future to pick the spot-on-the-spot. I have also noted on the lake map where these locations were with a green hi-lighter to accompany the pictures. While I definitely know better, and could have done better in this last trip with regards to fishing musky/pike, I have hopefully helped myself for future trips.
The long and the short, no I didn't have a successful musky/pike hunting trip, but I did take advantage of the situation to familiarize myself with the lake for the future. Also, as you can see below a days catch of great tasting crappie, I took Bill Lemke's advice and went with the Ebb and the Flow.
Click the mailbox to e-mail.
Last updated on ... December 13, 2003