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Boundary Waters Quetico Forum Fishing Forum Bayley Bay Basswood |
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09/13/2021 10:06AM
Fished Thursday and Friday last-week on Bayley and the weather was great. Fishing was great for smallmouth and pike but walleye were tight lipped. There are so many baitfish in the water out deep yet that i'm thinking they have no need to bite anything else. We caught some really nice smallmouth up to 21" and northerns averaged 26-28 inches. Every fish we caught was just plumb full of ciscoes. You can troll deep cranks right across the bay in 50-80 fow and catch all the northerns you want but we did not get any walleyes or lakers.
Lake needs to cool down a bit to push those baitfish shallow to get them to bite on that end of the lake in my opinion. We did not venture down to the west end as the water is so incredibly low it's like a minefield. Had a ton of fun and caught lots of fish however. Hope the report helps someone out.
Lake needs to cool down a bit to push those baitfish shallow to get them to bite on that end of the lake in my opinion. We did not venture down to the west end as the water is so incredibly low it's like a minefield. Had a ton of fun and caught lots of fish however. Hope the report helps someone out.
09/13/2021 12:51PM
Sorry to hear about the lower unit. There was a boat at our resort who hit a shallow reef and put a hole the size of a soccer ball in the hull. Very low water and very dangerous year for that. That is one reason why I didn't chance the other end of the lake.
09/14/2021 11:11AM
Was also on Basswood (via Moose chain) on a boat all last week (4-11) and we had very similar experience. The SMB fishing was excellent on the reefs in Bayley Bay. We ran into school after school of 18-20" fish on light tackle fishing top water and/or just under the top. We trolled deeper as well and did well on walleyes on 2 days but nothing the other 4 days on the water (25" catch/release as the biggest). We ran down the lake and avoided all shallow rocks (thankfully) and did well on top water down there as well. Caught bigger pike in the weeds (couple of 36"). When processing fish that we kept, they all had 6-8" cicsoes in their belly....gorging for sure. Saw that boat being towed in and heard they hit the reef going full out over a well know shallow reef. surprised the motor survived. While eating lunch on an island saw another boat hit a reef while they were heading to a campsite for lunch. It's definitely a challenge.
09/15/2021 09:31AM
I'm pretty certain starting on 9/15 every year they are on an "appointment" schedule meaning you need to tell them the time of day you want to go over to Basswood and what time you want to come out and back onto the chain. I don't know for certain when that ends, but I think it's Sept 30.
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