Carole and I absconded to the cabin a week and a half ago for some fall color full and we were not disappointed in the least. This year we were a week later than usual due to a wedding the weekend we'd normally be coming home and we opted for the later beginning time rather than pass on the trip.
Fishing was just "one of those things" where nothing I did was what the fish wanted. It started when the regular fall salmon run got off to a poor start with little rain to help fill the rivers and have enough flow to pull the fish in. A were taken off the breakwater where I cast from and a boat or two would tease one in but generally the salmon were not running well for anyone. The lake trout were everywhere, but they too seemed to be in a funk. I caught three lakers but with only one breaking the four pound mark, maybe 5. A friend came up and brought his boat in which we spent two and a half days trying to troll in six to eight foot rollers and thirty mile per hour winds. My one keeper trout was taken a mile off shore trolling. While we marked hundreds of trout on the electronics and could have jigged them in "normal" water, the lake was just to rough to stop the boat to jig and even then people who did try jigging using I-pilots were blown off the mark and most ended up taking water when the motor tried to correct itself.....Lake Superior is the ultimate test for claims surrounding those I pilots and when the tough get going on that puddle, the lake usually wins. But then as I always tell people: If you come to the lake with the expectation of catching fish, you're headed for disappointment and probably there for the wrong reason.
I'll be editing in some pictures for ya'll. This first one is of Carole and I at one of the small lakes on our cabin property where fall color first gets started.
This is a sunrise on Lake Superior seen from the breakwater as the John Barker, one of the many 1000 foot ore boats, is just getting started out onto the lake with a load of iron pellets after clearing the harbor behind me. This pic helps set up the next.
Here is a closer look at the intensity of the sun just as it breaches the horizon. With the clouds this particular morning, the sunrise got reeled in a little but I still say that the sun coming up from behind the lake is one of the prettiest sights on this planet s longs as clouds don't hide the sun entirely. The deep, bright red is an everyday color on Lake Superior.
Shortly after the sun rose fully, I caught this rainbow sneaking along under one of the clouds. The largest ore dock is seen here, the one where the Barker just left from. From where I am standing on the breakwater, this structure is 3/8th's of a mile away.
On Monday of this week we headed up to Silver Bay to go to a book signing by one of our favorite of all Minnesota authors, William Kent Kruger. He was at the public library for this and we had planned this little side trip into ours. Silver Bay has a beautiful marina along with a breakwater to create a safe harbor, so of course I had to fish a little there too but the water by the time we got there had gone rough. I did get a bath though...the breakwater is made of quarried granite, not the nice cement found in To Harbors and the rock I decided to cast from turned out to be a little too close to the water for the inevitable "sneaker" wave. I can elaborate on how 52 degree water feels if anyone so desires to here a rant. lol But before we went to the library we drove further up the shore to Palisade Head, a huge outcropping of rock that rises over 500 feet straight up out of the lake. The view from the parking area is breath-taking. Here's Carole squinting into the sun with Shovel Head showing up behind her. Just like Palisade, Shovel jumps straight up but only about 300 feet and really is less impressive.
You may notice the lack of fall colors in the trees in those pics taken along the big lake.....that's just one of the anomalies of Lake Superior and the effects it has on its coastline. The lake's steady temps hold back color change until air temps drop like rocks and the leaves turn color and drop almost as fast. The real color of the North Shore is found beginning maybe three miles inland. The winding drive to Palisade's parking area offers sheltered areas where color was just ablaze but you'd not see it from the highway.
So there is a little bit about the trip. Clouds and wind were daily companions while rain fell only one afternoon while we were in the boat. Yes, the fishing stunk but there is so much more than fishing up there.
