A Mission To Moose Country - A tale of beauty, dirty tricks,Beaver Flicks and mosquito bites.

 This trip started as a day dream on a couple hour car ride back from Iowa (pronounced eye-wah) with a good friend and known bank rat Dr. Flathead. He had called me that morning and invited me to ride with him to try and capture a Yellow Bass, not the kind of offer someone of my disposition can refuse. He not only put me on a Yellow bass within ten minutes of arriving at the spot but was also kind enough to drive as well. We talked a lot on the drive down about past contests, different strategies and problem species. The way back was quieter both of us riding the buzz of catching a target species. Even though it's only a couple hour drive to Iowa from the Twin Cities, it still felt really good to be away from my home waters and on the road. I love to travel, especially when it's fishing related and this little foray sparked an itch deep in my soul. I started day dreaming about different places I had been over the years and places I have yet to see. I decided I needed to go somewhere, anywhere and fast. Then I remembered a hot tip my good fishing cohort Goldberg had mentioned to me involving big Splake in a small lake off the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota. He and our mutual friend Long Hair Eddie had camped out for ten days on a few lakes in the area and absolutely murdered a number of different species of trout. Among these trout were some seriously impressive splake.

(Goldberg with a nice Splake)

They had invited to me to come with them but I just had way too much going on to even consider going and was extremely disappointed by that. I thought about how clean and fresh the air is on the north shore and how beautiful Lake Superior and her iron stained tributaries are. The fantasy was in complete control now, my logical brain quieted by a torrent of memories, what if's and could be's. I started calculating gas money and my chances of making it almost to Ontario on minimum maintenance roads without breaking down. I convinced myself that it really wasn't THAT far and bald tires and the deafening racket coming from my drivers wheel bearing wasn't THAT big of an issue and decided to leave in the morning. I planned to go by myself pack light and keep the trip down to two days as to not press my luck any further than I already was. Since I was already going that direction any way I decided to make a few  stops on some tributaries of Superior and make the trip into a full fledged North Shore milk run. My targets would be White Perch, Longnose Sucker and Splake. I was loading the car in the morning when the Midwest Menace sent me a text asking if I wanted to get out fishing for the contest. I called him and explained my plan, intentionally trying to poison his mind with the magic of far off wilderness fishing adventure. He told me he really wanted to go but that his girlfriend would kill him and that his work schedule was crazy and just couldn't make it. I told him I understood and that I would call him when I got back. I hung up the phone and thought "WHEN you get back? More like IF you get back you poor fool." I was only five minutes down the road from my house when the Menace called me back with instructions to pick him and his gear up from his house immediately. "It worked" I thought, now we had the makings for a serious adventure. I made the short drive to the menace's abode and stuffed him and his gear into the vehicle and sped off north. North to the country of the Bear and Timber Wolf, the Pine Marten and Moose. Huge pines, crystal clear cool water and huge beautiful fish. We were both beyond excited to try for the huge Splake Goldberg and Eddie had teased us with a month before. That was hours away though and our first spot we planned to fish was a lot different than the rest of the areas we would be fishing. Our first target, the White perch an invasive species in Minnesota lives in the St. Louis River a larger, warmer and slower tributary of Lake Superior.

We arrived at the St. Louis River to find it high, fast and dirty. It still seemed quite fishable and we both set out to try and capture a white perch. The bite was slow and the first for me didn't come for a good twenty minutes. Elated I grabbed my rod, reeled down and gently set the hook. Nothing. I reeled in to check my bait and found that nothing was actually a tiny Eurasian Ruffe another invasive species that has a spawning population in Lake Superior and the St. Louis River.

The next hour consisted of much of the same with the highlight being the Menaces contest Yellow Perch being caught. Hey, at least it was some kind of Perch.

We decided to cut our losses and head for the next area, vowing to have our revenge on the way home. We got in the car and continued north to another smaller tributary just south of Grand Marais after the elusive Longnose sucker. I was more than a little worried that they might not be in the river still because of the warm spring and massive amounts of rain that we had and my failure to catch a white perch which had been an easy catch on my last trip was not easing these fears. We arrived to find the river a good bit higher and faster than it had been on my last trip.

I decided to set up closer to the mouth of the river than I had in the past on a nice current break with a terrific looking seam and white frothy scum line. The area was just as beautiful as I remembered it, the fresh northern air laced with the scent of pine was intoxicating and soon I was in a state of total euphoria. My crawler wasn't on the bottom five minutes when I had a strong and dedicated bite. I set the hook and had a nice sized fish on. It turned out to be a great looking Longnose.

It wasn't long after mine was released that the Menace answered back with a nice one of his own.

We messed around for a little longer and then got back in the car for the last leg of the drive. North east to Hovland and then up the Gunflint Trail to a small lake we planned to camp the night on and fish for Splake in the AM. When we were almost to our campsite we drove past a sign I took as a good omen and had to stop for a quick photo op.

  Soon  the pavement became a rough rocky road and we stopped seeing other cars. We knew we were getting close to where we wanted to be.

We got to our camp site at twighlight. We were happy to find it empty and went about checking out the surrounding area. The campsite was right next to the road and there was a small trail with a board walk that led to the lake.

It wasn't long after we got there when the first cloud of giant mosquitos showed up to welcome us to the area. It was shortly after that we realized we had forgotten any type of bug repellant besides cigarettes. Very poor planning. They raped us the entire time, there was no remorse and no quarter. I'm used to fishing some pretty buggy areas but this was BAAADDD. The only thing that compares to it is the Everglades after dark. Despite the insect horde and out lack of protection against them we were both happy to be there and excited to fish in the Morning.

We had a first class camp dinner of canned soup, hotdogs and bologna sandwiches and were sitting enjoying our after dinner pipe when we seen headlights coming down the road from the first car we had seen yet. The menace got up to survey the situation and said there was a truck coming. "I think there is a deer running in front of it..." he said quizzically. I got up and looked myself to see a truck coming down the road with a big ass cow Moose in front of it, coming full speed directly at our roadside camp. "That's a god damn efffing Moose!" I exclaimed as I scrambled in a half circle pivot trying to figure out if I should run or climb the nearest tree. The menace brandishing a matchette seemingly from nowhere gaped at me and yelled "Get in the effing car dude!" It was too late for me to react, I froze milliseconds from shitting my pants and getting trampled by a huge beast. At the last second it seen us did a 180 degree turn in the road released its bowels and bolted off the road and into the thicket. Needless to say, we didn't go right to sleep and had to have a few extra after dinner pipes than usual to calm our nerves before bed. It was late before I could fall asleep and the birds woke me early. I felt fatigued from lack of sleep but much too excited to lay in my tent and sleep on this cool grey morning.

I got down to the water with my gear as quick as I could manage in my unrested and disheveled state and began to elbow my way in between the mosquitos for a spot on the bank. The menace was close behind and was able to muscle his way in as well much to the delight of the resident mosquitoes who lost no time having us for breakfast.

Goldberg told us that he was using a three way rig to catch the Splake with Inflated crawlers. I rigged up per his specs and waded out a short distance so I could get my bait into the deep hole where the Splake reside.

After a half an hour of no bites I checked my bait and sent out a fresh one. I was starting to get pretty nervous that I was going to get skunked when I got my first bite. I set the hook on a solid fish and hauled in a nice sized trout.

It was large in comparison to the trout I'm used to catching in my local stream, had a brook trout marking and a seemingly forked tail. I was sure it was the Splake I was after. The Menace answered back minutes later with one of his own.

We were both happy as could be thinking we had caught our Splake for the contest. We would later find out that they were both just big Brook trout with slightly forked tails which was not only disappointing but embarrassing. Either way they were cool ass fish caught from an amazing area and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We both caught one more and the bite slowed to only the kind from mosquitoes. We decided we had done well enough and to start heading back south to try and settle the score with the White Perch.

(Hoof prints not 30 feet from our camp from the prvious nights moose attack.)

We stopped and fished a few more tribs of the big lake on the way home which were gorgeous but only produced white suckers which made us feel all the more lucky to have captured the Longnose in short order on our way up. We were low on crawlers when we hit Grand Marais so we stopped at the local baitshope to re-up. The bait shop owner was super nice and gave us each two of his home made Beaver Flicks for free.  He told us he guarantees them to catch fish in the summer and double guarantees them for ice fishing.Im not sure what that's supposed to mean but I will let you know how they work once I try them.

He is a helluva nice guy and I urge anyone going that way to give him any business you can.

Here are some pictures of the other tribs we messed around on.

We took longer messing around on the tribs and it was evening before we made it to the St. Louis. The menace still needed his contest Smallie and pike so he decided to try casting a crank bait first. He was able to produce his pike not long after we arrived.

The White Perch on the other hand never showed up, totally snubbing us both at every spot we tried. We both caught many more Ruffie and I even caught a Round goby.

As light began to fail, we decide to cut our losses and head back home.

We didn't get everything we came for but still had a great time doing it. I you ever get a chance to visit this area I urge you to jump on it and ride it out, you won't regret it.