What lure caught lake trout in the Boundary Waters this week?

We sell only guide-recommended fishing tackle, such as this Dardevle Five of Diamonds shown above, at Ely Outfitting Company in Ely, MN.  The lakers were hanging out in the transition from deeper water to about 17 feet deep.

Late-ice Crappies are Biting

It's the time of year that ice fishermen are in search of late season crappies.  We found these slabs this week suspended at about 17 feet deep.  I'm looking forward to the fish fry.

A Dogsled Guide's Day Off

People often ask me what dogsled guides do on our days off. I tell them that our days off tend to look a lot like our days on.

For example, I had this week off from guiding to celebrate a late Christmas with my parents who visited from Iowa. What did I find myself doing on my day off? Sure enough, dogsledding. I took my dad and a few friends dogsledding up to Basswood Lake for a day trip. We cruised around on the dogsleds, set some tip-ups, and had a nice fire and some Zup's polish sausage. The crappies weren't active, but we pulled up several pike, including the one in the below photo.

We also spied two wolves along the way. We saw one that looked somewhat weak on Sunset Road on the way to Fall Lake. The other seemed healthy and robust as it loped across Muskeg Lake off of the Four Mile.

I suppose it's a good sign that you like your job if you do it on your days off.

Fishing With Kids in the BWCAW is Fun

A nice family from the Chicago area stayed at Fenske Lake Cabins near Ely this week and joined Boundary Waters Guide Service for a couple days of guided fun on the lakes.

The whole family traveled by canoe to see some historic pictographs and pick wild blueberries yesterday. Today Keith took his two sons on a fishing trip with us. Jeremy (age 12) caught this nice smallmouth bass, and Adam (age 15) caught the lunker northern pike. Great job boys!

Smallmouth Bass Spawning Bed

The smallmouth bass are on their beds now. The male smallmouth bass have recently created visible beds in shallow waters along the shores of BWCA lakes and rivers. The male bass makes the bed by fanning the sand and gravel away from an area near a rocky shoreline. If a female bass is impressed, then she will lay her eggs in the bed. Then, the male swims guard over the eggs.

Both the female and male smallmouth bass will aggressively defend the nest.

I took both of these photos of the same smallmouth bass bed today on Crooked Lake. The above photo shows the bright ring made when the male brushes away the sand and gravel. The below photo shows a bass in the same bed, just closer up.

Casting topwater lures such as a Heddon Torpedo near these beds results in a fierce strike for the bass now. This action won't last long, so grab a pole and practice catch and release. You will want to do like we did and release any female bass that have eggs. It is an important conservation practice to allow these fish to reproduce for healthy populations.

Dragonfly Nymph

I turned over some submerged stones in a BWCA lake this week looking for crayfish. Instead of crayfish, I spotted this dragonfly nymph.

Dragonflies spend most of their lives under water in a nymph stage. As nymphs, they are aggressive predators. They are carnivorous and primarily eat insects, but are known to eat vertebrates such as small fish and tadpoles.

An interesting fact about dragonfly nymphs is that they breath by sucking water into their abdomen and moving it over internal gills. The water can then be expelled under pressure to propel the creatures forward.

This find reminded me of a trout caught several winters back. After filleting it, I discovered two dragonfly nymphs that looked just like this one in its belly.