Based on a hot tip, I had made an overnight paddle reservation into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness intent on fly fishing for that 21 inch smallmouth bass I’d set my sights for. I canceled that trip shortly after I received Brent’s “let’s go to Montana” e-mail and re-scheduled to paddle in a few days after we returned from the west. I expected this situation to be good fate because I thought the bass would be spawning later than usual, anyway. Of course, any invitation to Montana is good fate on its own, so it seemed like a win-win deal to me.
At dawn I parked my truck off the road and portaged my gear to the first lake a little better than half a mile away. I was on a solo trip (I’d hung an open invitation out there – no takers) and I had to double portage to get my packs and canoe across, which required three trips over each portage. But enthusiasm was on my side and I was eager to try out the new bass poppers I’d tied over the winter, so I headed out in high spirits. Five hours later I made my last 90-rod portage over a little used trail into my destination lake with plenty of time to pitch camp and fish out the day.
The tip I’d gotten was from a believable source who described the lake as off the beaten path (true enough), easy to get to in a day (again, true), full of large bass (for me to find out). Now, describing large bass can be a pretty subjective topic. If you’re fishing Texas largemouth then you’re gonna need something in the neighborhood of ten pounds to be considered a nice fish. If you’re at little Jammer Lake off the highway a few miles from here you’ll consider showing off anything 12 inches long, though if you tell them you caught it fly-fishing they’ll tell you you’d be better off dropping a crawler on the bottom. And why are you fishing for bass, anyhow? Between here and Texas you’ll run into lots of differing criteria to what constitutes a big bass.
All in all, I was of the notion that this might be the place to take that trophy.
After I set up a comfortable camp on the north shore and gobbled a quick lunch I stood looking and the lake and pondering which way to try first. There was a moderate breeze coming in and it turned out to be the first of four days of east to southeast winds. Wind from the east, fish bite the least… I threw my Crazy Creek chair onto the canoe seat to ease my lower back and pushed off. The first smallmouth took one of my new poppers when I was a hundred yards from camp, along the north shore of the lake, but it was tough trying to cast and control the canoe in the wind. Sometimes I would drop a rock anchor over the side and shoot a number of casts to likely looking cover, but I soon found my way to the east and south shores where the water was calm. Near a beaver lodge I could peer into the clear water and see schools of suckers alongside what looked like largemouth bass. It was soon confirmed as I started catching largemouths that would jump clear of the water in imitation of the rainbow trout we caught the week before. The clear water was deceiving and what looked like a depth of two or three feet was more like six or eight. It didn’t take long to realize the bonzebacks were not on their nests, yet. I caught only a couple that were way up in the shallows, and most of the fish came at the edge of the drop, twenty or so feet from shoreline. When the poppers and hair bugs worked it was exciting with some of the bass rushing up and clearing the water when they hit. But nothing seemed to work for long and I caught some casting a huge rubber-legged wooly bugger sort of thing and a small Klouser tied with brown marabou and X-legs that looked, to me, like a passable crawfish hopping along the rocky bottom. I have to say that maybe the most effective fly was a waterlogged deer hair diver that I’d let sink a few inches before stripping it in and leaving a wake on the surface. I lost it when a nice bass wrapped up in an underwater tree limb.
The lake looks like bass heaven to me and I saw many more fish than I caught. Except for a few areas of fine gravel the bottom is covered with the rocky rumble that stirs us bass anglers, with plenty of downed and sunken trees along the edges. I landed about as many largemouth as smallies with the latter running a bit larger.
The first evening I set my routine of returning to camp to cook a good supper on my camp stove and set up a campfire of dry beaver wood that would start with one match when I returned at dark from more fishing. There's nothing much better than pondering a crackling fire on a remote lake, listening to the loons singing their wild songs, and a sip from the flask to ease sore muscles before crawling into the tent for the night. It was cool enough to frost overnight so the insects that are so often thick this time of year were not an issue. The first night I woke in the dark to hear wolves howling in the woods to the north, a sound that makes me happy to burrow deeper into my sleeping bag, but it was water lapping the shoreline yards from my tent that put me away each night.
One morning I looked at the overcast eastern sky wondering if it would rain. I tied my rain jacket to a thwart and as soon as I got across the lake the rain came. It was no passing shower and my rain pants were back in camp. After a morning of fishing in the rain I paddled to camp and sat under the tarp drying out and drinking coffee. It cleared in the late afternoon to a beauty of an evening that brought still more paddling, casting, and bass.
A few days of fly casting and paddling a canoe reminded me that I’m no youngster, anymore, but I’m mighty happy to have the chances and places to keep at it. I once guided an old friend, the man who started me fly tying, on a BWCA winter ski in trip. We were huddled against a rock face cooking a lunch of polish sausage over a small fire and I asked how he was doing. He answered, “It’s better to wear out than to rust.” He’s long retired, now, and bouncing grandkids off his knees, but he still makes the long trip up here to paddle and portage in canoe country every year, or so. I like that.
I had some pike leaders along just in case I had the chance, but this lake seemed to hold nothing but bass and schools of suckers working the bottom. Timing is important when targeting these early season bass and I believe I was too early for the best of it. I suppose I should be there right now, but, much as I’d like, I just can’t spent all my time recreating. Dang. And my quest for the 21 continues.
