Week 10 Recap: Of Wind, Waves & Big Fish

OF WIND, WAVES, BIG FISH AND FUN

The Week 10 gang had a little of everything for their trip: sunshine, heat, clouds, cold, flat water, big waves, big fish and most importantly FUN. It was like three or four trips in one. While it wasn’t the record-setting week we had for Week 8, it was much better than the tough fishing we had back on Week 7. This one was right in between which is not a terrible place to be. Predictably the weather was the controlling variable during the trip. On warm, sunny days like Day 4 the fishing was gangbusters with 41 trophy fish landed. On the Big Blow of Day 2 with outrageous wind and waves, it was a different story; most of the group followed the adage: discretion is the better part of valor. The elements made traveling around the lake nearly impossible and certainly not comfortable. Avoiding the vicious north wind that day was probably a good call—the cabins and main lodge were warm and inviting. As with all cold fronts up here, most of the fish landed that day ran from small to medium except for two trophy pike brought in by two brave souls named Ken Williamson Sr. and Doug Stepansky. Congrats to them for their stamina. The storm blew itself out in a day and we got back to business as usual, catching a lot of big fish. The week ended strong with a final trophy fish count of exactly 100, not a record but not too shabby. Most of those fish were pike with 77 landed along with 11 Arctic grayling and 14 lake trout.

Historically that’s not a big number for trophy lake trout for this time of the season when the big trout should be deep in their summer holes, but some very big lakers made an appearance on the TV screens during the nightly Fish-of-the-Day program. We saw Kathy Clay on the screen often. She loves those hard fighting speedsters. She had two 37-inchers and a 38 along with dozens of smaller fish on a memorable day. Fat 38s were taken by Dylan Williamson and Tony Trusso. Mike Trumbower added an inch to hit the 39-inch mark. From there the tapes just kept getting longer: Jim Williamson got a 40; Dave Hawker caught a 41 on his first ever lake trout trip, and Jacob Williamson caught the Trout of the Week with a very girthy 42-incher. That impressive fish pushed Jacob into the 100+Club ranks with 102 total inches of trophy trout, pike and grayling. Jim Tallman and Dylan Williamson came up just a little short on the 100-inch peg but took home the Trophy Triple hats.

There were plenty of big pike in guide nets as well this week. Pike of 44” were taken by Jim Williamson, Jimmy Kozlowski and Dan Romaine. It was a great week for the 45” supersized category of northern pike. Many guests got into those memorable fish: Todd Kalish, Brian Kozlowski, Mike Rogers, Ken Williamson Jr., Dave Hawker and Dan Romaine. At times the trophy pike came in bunches. Both Al Willaimson and Mike Rogers got a four-pack of trophy pike on the same day. Again, this week there were many interesting wildlife encounters with several muskox sightings and one enormous bull moose. For unknown reasons, it’s been our most active year for spotting wildlife. It added a new level of excitement to the trip for many guests. So, all in all, it was a great week to be at Scott Lake Lodge. After passing the halfway point of the season this week, we now look forward to “fall fishing” when the pike move into deeper water and begin their late season feeding binge and the lake trout are fully settled in their deep holes where with the aid of experienced guides (and fancy electronics) the big fish can be targeted and hopefully caught. Stay tuned for a lot of big trout action in the weeks ahead.