This summer a group of us headed north to escape the heat. La Pas to Cormorant Lake was the last leg. It was fortified by three hours of coffee and donuts at the local bakery / deli. Unfortunately for us we ended up between the frying pan and the fire, almost literally.  While everyone in the tri-state area sweltered in the heat, we had 85 degree days and forest fires to the north of us. Everyone thinks the north country is always so cold. A look at the weather maps this summer would cure that notion. What we lacked in cool we made up for in time. Good light from 5 am to 11:30 pm. Afternoon siestas were common. The fishing was good, although we were not very good at finding it for ourselves. While we caught a few fish the first day, it wasn't until we had a day with a guide that we got into real fish catching. Of course the fish were on the other side of the lake; eighteen miles away. Well there were these bays about six miles out that provided most of the fish. The first couple days were spent with spinning and casting gear. We did OK, but were hoping for more. The day after our guided trip, John (Miller) and I headed for the walleye hole the guide sat us on. We were not alone. It seems that besides our guide coming back with another customer, everyone on the planet had heard of this spot. Well we fooled them by bringing out our fly casting gear. A little fly flinging soon dispersed all but the most dedicated, and even they moved well out of range. Instead of the normal tippet I put on about twenty feet of Cobra flat nylon and then about four feet of six pound test mono. I used 18 in.. wire leaders. For a fly I chose a Clouser Deep Minnow. Fishing was never what you would call hot, but I did get walleye and a tullibee on the fly rod. A first for me.  John wasn't getting quite deep enough and didn't get anything from this hole, but he made up for it later. After flaying the water to a froth, we move on to larger fish. Monster Bay is only about a mile away, so as our guide had done the previous day, before having lunch we headed over to catch some northern.

When we came into Monster Bay the day before, I saw several huge fish on the bottom. I asked the guide if there were sturgeon in the lake. He said no, these were northern, big  northern. We tried a number of flies. The Bent Backs and Deceivers worked, as did the Double Perch fly that Mike showed us at one of our spring meetings, but I felt that my bunny flies worked best. Not only would a pike rush in like a torpedo from the side, but they would pick it up off the bottom. Jigging or popping a fly did not seem to induce strikes when one followed the fly in, but letting it drop to the bottom got them to suck it in after a close examination. They would go almost vertical with their nose to the bottom, then just flare their gills. Bang! You had them on. At least for a little while. About half let go of the hook. More of a straight line strike might have gotten more hookups. A small fish was 29 inches. I had one on for about two minutes that went about 40 inches. John had the Mother-of-All-Northern suck in and spit out his perch fly. In slow motion, which is I'm sure how we saw it, it only took a couple seconds. As John is fond of saying," If we'd have hooked that fish we'd still be out there fighting it." My estimates on the size of that fish are about nine inches between the eyes, or more, and about five feet long. This was not the largest fish we saw.

The rest of the trip we spent most of our time fly fishing. Catching more northern and walleyes in the other  bays, which had much cloudier water. I had lots of follows and feel a little scent might have made a difference. In these areas, fast spoons with a silver flash were the meat getters.  We tried using some of the new braided line in place of wire, but line that lasted a spin caster all day only got one fish before breaking off while fly fishing. This fishing was a blast. It's too bad we can't fish the lake bays early in the year and catch the big northern concentrated in shallow in our local lakes. The Mississippi is our only chance to catch them this concentrated.