A Great Average: The Week 3 Update

In baseball going 2 for 5 is a pretty good day, sporting a .400 average. So should it be in fishing. Not every day is great. For our Week 3 guests they batted .400, having two days of wonderful sunshine over their five-day trip. Add the last day of a little sun and no rain (call it a bunt single) and you have a week of decent weather. As we have often reported in this blog, sunshine and great pike fishing are inseparable. Never has that been more evident than over our June 19-24 adventure. We had for the first two days a hangover from one of the epic cold fronts of our history: a massive front that sat over the Scott Lake area for the first 12 days of the 2023 season. The fishing for the first two days was tough. Let’s put some numbers on it. Our total pike trophy count for Week 3 was 66, a respectable but not sensational number, but 56 of those big pike were landed during the two-day window of bright sunshine. This was the solstice week, the longest days of the year and the most intense sunshine. And when that sun came out our pike really turned on. It’s like a big switch in the sky. It was flipped ON.

We had a two-day bonanza of great pike fishing. Rachael Bandt thought she had a career day last season when she landed a 47” pike. This year she topped that big time. On a memorable day on Selwyn Lake, she bagged five trophy pike, including a trio at 44, 45 and 46 inches. Now that’s a day of great pike fishing!. Another long-time guest, Jim MacDougall, had the biggest fish of the young season. On Odin Lake armed with his fly rod Jim gently guided a 48.5” beautiful pike into his guide’s big net. He had two other pike trophies that day. Greg Larson had a four-trophy pike day on Ingalls Lake. Patrick Lynch had a impressive day on Wignes Lake, along with Premier Lake a body of water connected to Scott and accessible by boat. He landed three big pike, a 42.5”, a 44” and a heavy 46.5” beauty. Other dandy 44.5” pike caught in the two-day spree were taken by Hunter Larson and Steve Bandt (AKA “Big Dog”). Those were two days our group will remember for a long time, clouding out the memories of the two days of rain, wind and cold that opened their trip.

But that cool weather seemed to help the lake trout fishing. With the pike fishing slowed by the cold temps and dark skies many Scott guides just shifted to trout with good results. Lake trout don’t need sunshine to go “active”. Many were landed on Scott Lake, a fabulous trout lake, over those two days. Greg Larson got a gorgeous 40” laker that brightened up his day. Bob Mason ended up with three nice lakers, topping out at 38.5”. Dave Thome got a 38.5”.

The trout story and fishing story of the week though happened on a distant flyout to the east end of Wholdaia Lake, a massive lake about 100 miles northeast of Scott. Joe Novicki and Bill Calabresa had a day most anglers could only dream about. They both entered the 100+Club in dramatic fashion, the “Done in One” by getting all three of our gamefish in trophy size that hit 100 total inches. It’s quite a fishing feat. Bill got a monster lake trout of 41.5” to go along with a 41.5” pike and a 17.5” grayling. Joe landed a 42” pike, a 39.5” lake trout and a huge 19.5” arctic grayling. Quite a day and quite a week. The group enjoyed some great pike fishing, great lake trout fishing, great grayling fishing, great shore lunches, the fine dining at the lodge and the joy of sharing this unique wilderness setting with good friends, new and old. For most of our crew they simply hit it out of the park.