Lower Manitou Lake Fishing Reports 2010

4/25/10

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted everyone to know that we are going to try to report weekly on the fantastic fishing that we have at Camp Manitou on Lower Manitou Lake.
The trout fishing so far has been fantastic to say the least, the first group in was just 2 guys, but they pounded the trout. They haven’t been the lake in a couple of years, but it didn’t take them long to figure the trout out. They were long line trolling silver mepps #5’s with a 1oz egg sinker inline for most of the trip and it seemed to be the ticket. Last friday alone they boated 25+ lake trout with over 50 total for the 2 1/2 day trip leaving last sunday afternoon.
A group of friends came up for 1 night on friday and they were running down riggers with them set at 35′ over 60-90fow most of saturday. The hot bait on their down riggers was a small rainbow trout colored needlefish.
We have another group in right now that is checking out this afternoon, I will update a report from them once I get one.
The best thing about this unusual spring is that the trout fishing has been very good and should only get better, the spring fishing is usually the best 7-10 days after ice out, but this spring the trout havn’t even come up yet. They are still deep, but slowly coming up. The groups coming the next couple of weekends should be in for some great trout action.

Check back for more updates.

is the ice off the main lake? or just the stretch?

The Ice has been off the whole system for 2 weeks now. We have had alot of warm weather and alot of wind for the past month and just about everywhere has had a record ice out.

5/4/10

Looks like the trout have started to move up. One group that we had at our outpost limited out and had a few extra to throw back just dead bait rigging with ciscoes from the shore in front of the cabin. Another groups of two have boated 20+ trout trolling and the hot bait seems to be blue/chrome husky jerk. They are trolling breaklines around 25-35 feet.

5/15/10

We had a nice downpour thursday night, it rained hard from about 6pm until 6am. We must have gotten 1.5″-2″, the water has come up about 3″ so far. Some of the creek have started to flow, now that they have filled up a bit.

The trout fishing has been very stable the past couple of weeks. Cabin #5 fished mainly trout today and they boat 41 trout and 4 pike. The trout are still around 25′ out over 40-60fow.

The water temps in some of the back bays we around 56-58F and the main stretch was 49F today.

Matt,

Can’t wait to get up there Sunday. Sounds like they’re still tearing up the Lake Trout. What are they using now?

Thanks

5/18/10

We had a group fishing in mister lake yesterday and between 8:30am and 3:00pm they boated 53 lake trout between 3 guys. They caught all the trout on 3/4 oz jigs and 5″ white sluppies, when all the sluppies were tore up they went to plain white twister tails. Along with the Trout they also boated 15 pike, the largest being 37″.

The bass are really starting to get active also, this same group fished a few of the waterfalls off small bays along the stretch and they did very good on white banjo minnows.

5/20/10

The trout fishing has continued to be very productive even with the hot temps and rising water temps. We had another great weather day today and one group pulled up to a small island and fished from shore with dead bait rigs on for trout and limited out as well as had a few to throw back all while enjoying the sun and playing some cribbage.
We had another group at our outpost hammer the smallies in phairs lake and at a few of the flowing waterfalls around the lower manitou stretch.
The bass are starting to make some bed, so it looks like we are about a month ahead of last years spawn.

5/27/10

The bass on are on the beds big time in the warmer sections of the lake. Right now the guide boats are averaging 80-110 fish per day and the unguided guys are doing pretty good with reports of 50-60 fish per day.
Some of the portage lakes are heating up as well, alonghill, dogfly, and gates are putting out good numbers of bass.

The laker are still being caught trolling, the numbers are down from two weeks ago which is normal due to the warming water. We will start jigging for them soon.

The weeds are about a month ahead of schedule and the pike starting hang out in them, so they are very easy to target.

We have a few openings in late june if anyone is still looking for a last minute trip.

We stayed May 23 and May 24 at Cabin five at Camp Manitou and the 25th througth the 29th at their Outpost Cabin. This was the best trip I’ve had yet to the Manitou in more than 25 years. The fish catching was non-stop. The smallies were on their beds, the northerns were crusing the shallows and the weather was perfect. Without targeting them, the muskies were continually playing with us. The water Temps when we were there were 62 to 65 in the bays, with some of the small off shoot lakes much warmer. Caught 43 straight bass out of one waterfall, one bay had over 70 northern, average at 100 fish a day. I told my son not to expect this every year. He told me “that’s what you said last year!”.

This 42.5″ was in a shallow bay with a bunch of northern and caught on a small grub.

She was very beat up from spawning, but we revived her and watched the area to make sure she was OK. We left her in the large net for quite awhile. Only had her out of the water for a few seconds.

I love the central location of the Outpost Cabin.

Thanks Matt for the awesome memories. My son is now hooked beyond his control. I trust his addiction will last a lifetime as mine has.
_________________________
SimilarIsland

“Some men fish all their lives without knowing it is not really the fish they are after.” -Henry David Thoreau

6/29/10

Craig

The fishing has been awesome the past 10 days or so. The weeds are up just about everywhere and I have seen them in a couple of new spots this year. The water is still down about 12″, but that is alot better than what is was when we arrived in the early spring.
The bass fishing has been very good, wacky worms and anything topwater is hot right now.
There are tons of pike in the 8-12′ cabbage.
Lakers are down in the 50-65′ range right now.
The Muskies are smoking hot right now. Last weekend we boated 38″, 41″, and a 47″ and saw many more. We also just had a group checkout yesterday that was here for 5 nights and they boated 18 skis with the largest being 48″.

You better take some time off and get back up here;)

Thanks for the update. Can’t wait to get back up.

Any hot baits for the skies! Ill be there friday! oh I need to stop by and get the old mans generator from you! is it at the outpost yet or what! let me know and we will try and stop by on the way in! will pick it up sunday on my way out if that works for you!

Corey Lukes

I believe the generator you’re talking about is still on the front porch of the outpost cabin.

Matt,

I’ll be up a week from Saturday. How’s the fishin?

Thanks

Craig,

The trout fishing has been nothing shot of phenomenal and this started about july 25, you can catch tons jigging, rigging and trolling. I was out on last monday and we caught 41 trout, biggest was about 12lbs. You will find them everywhere right now. There are tons of them right out in front of snare bay, hailstone bay, just south of black island, etc.

The bass have also been very good, we have been getting them fishing in 12-14fow with wacky worms and flukes, just working them slowly along the bottom.

The bigger pike seem to be more and more active, we have been getting some in the high 30″ range along with a few in the low 40″s. The cabbage/weeds were unreal this year, I found 10 new weed beds that I didn’t know about this year and I have been fishing the lake for 9 years. That being said some of the weeds are starting to die off.

The portages have been very good also.
Calder – is still producing muskies, biggest one last week was 38″, lots of smaller ones.

Mister – big northerns in the large middle weedbed where the two sections of the lake neck down.

Dogfly – Bass, bass, bass, lots of 14-17″ bass being caught right now.

Gates – Largemouth and smallmouth are being caught in very good numbers, gates is one of the only stained lakes we have and it seems (on) everyday someone goes in there.

Walleye Lakes – Our 2 walleye lakes that we go into have been dynamite the past 3 weeks, with the water cooling down they have taken off. It doesn’t matter if you are trolling spinners or jigging the fish are biting like crazy. Yesterday 1 boat used 11 doz. minnows, I was in there thursday and saturday and we used between 8-10 doz. each day. The conditions were overcast with a light breeze and the walleyes were biting all day long.

Thanks!

One Week!

Hey Craig,

How did your trip go? The weather was sure nice for it.

Matt,

I ended up backing out. I really hate to fish three to a boat, especially in my boat. There would have been five of us. That would also prevent me from going north to my favorite haunts. I figured it would be better for all concerned. Hoffer just mentioned going up next week if the weather stayed nice. Have you closed the cabin yet?