Fishing  Report 2005

10/15/05 - After last week when a Nor'easter blew through giving us 15' waves and snow the next day.  I decided to call it quits for the year.  Thanks to everyone that came aboard this summer.  It was a great year of fishing filled with lots of big fish and good people.  It is always a sad day when the cover goes over the boat, but I am already counting the days until next season.  Hope to see you then.   Darren

10/2/05 - Another charter season is drawing to a close.  A few more trips on the lake for the die hard fishermen that want to try for salmon and the popular scenic fall color tours.  The maples are passing their peak but my favorites are the golds of the birch and aspen contrasting the reds of the under brush right along the shore, which are becoming more vibrant every day.  A couple more weeks before the boat is put away for the year.

9/28/05 - The lake trout season is drawing to a close for 2005.  A couple days left and the fish continue to bite very well.  Today we are off the lake, gale force winds are predicted from the NW.  It sounded like the wind came at 4am this morning and it spread my deck furniture all over the yard.  Weather allowing we will be back on the lake chasing a trophy tomorrow.

First Grade News!  Congratulations to Kelsi Rippberger.  She landed the two biggest lake trout of the day on a recent Lake Superior fishing trip.

9/24/05 - Lake trout fishing continues to be excellent as we near the end of the season.  Not quite as many biting yesterday, but our average size shifted up to 5 - 8lbs with a beautiful 18.5lb laker topping the scale for the day.

Congratulations to the newly weds - Shaun & Becky

9/19/05 - Off the water today because of a pretty good NE blow, along with heavy rain.  This follows a perfect fall day of fishing.  Great weather and nice sized fish biting.  All were 4 - 8lbs which means the bite of big fish is hopefully just a couple days away.  As always we get an influx of males before the big females move in to spawn.  Trout season ends on the 30th, so they need to come soon.  Fall colors are in full swing here on the shore.  The ridge line is full of the red and orange maples.  The gold birch and aspen by the lake are just starting to turn.

Happy Birthday - Dick
Happy Anniversary - Sandy & Durk

9/12/05 - Fishing continues to be good to excellent.  The water temp is staying in the mid to high 50's which is keeping the fish near the surface and active.  We had a great day on the water Sunday.  It was very slow for quite a while and then we found the school - 4 fish on at one time, and then a couple more after we landed three out of the four.  Five fish in the box before I had time to enter them in my log.  Some call it chaos, I love that kind of action.

Happy Birthday - Russ
Happy Birthday - Amy

9/8/05 - September fishing - excellent when you can get on the water.  This time of year the wind doesn't always allow us time on Lake Superior, but when it does, look out the fish are biting.  Lake trout in good numbers with a few big ones mixed in.  To top it off lately we have been finding a few kings to add to our bag.  In fact I finally had an afternoon off and got the family out on the lake.  Jack landed his first fish on Lake Superior and it was a 4lb king salmon.  Not sure who was more excited.

Bird migration is well underway here on the shore.  Raptors do not like to cross the open waters of Lake Superior, so they are concentrated along the shore and ridgeline.  I find that smaller birds head off shore to avoid the predators.  Recently we had large numbers of songbird die on Lake Superior.  Finding all the dead song birds on top of the water followed a two day stretch of strong north westerly winds.  My guess is that the strong winds prevented these little birds from making it back to shore and they just ran out of energy.  I have heard of similar observations in the Grand Marais area, but not from further south, where the lake is a lot narrower and the birds probably were blown across to Wisconsin.

9/3/05 - Even though this past week has presented us with some tough fishing conditions we have been doing very well.  It started with surface water temps into the mid 60's this was the easy part of the week.  We found a good school of fish and even caught two 5 1/2 lb lake trout on one rod, that was a tussle.  Then strong westerly winds blew for two days driving our warm water out and we ended up with 38F by shore.  A little searching and fish were back on the line.  Limits of nice sized lakers the last couple days.

On Tuesday I was pleased to welcome "On the Road with Jason Davis" aboard Tofte Charters.  I  took them on a boat ride to the Manitou Falls and Bluefin Bay for a segment in his upcoming show.  The show is slated to run in January.  While coming back from the falls we happened to see a deer laying a on rock about the size of a house.  Not just a deer, a big buck with a drop tine no less.  He was bedded on a rock that was about 150' off shore completely surrounded by water.  As we floated by debating the reason for his location, he got up jumped off the rock into the water and swam to shore. 

Congratulations to the newly weds - Aaron & Robin

8/27/05 - One fish shy of another North Shore Slam yesterday.  The last fish we needed to complete the slam was a pink salmon, and the last fish of the day was a small salmon.  As we started to celebrate the slam, closer observation showed it to be a small king.  Still a great day of fishing which included a nice clipped steelhead in the morning and a pair of 10lb lakers in the afternoon.

Happy 10th Anniversary - Julie & Rich
Congratulations to the newly weds - Tom & Bridgette
Congratulations to the newly weds - Julie & Brian

8/23/05 - Nice size trout are continuing to hit.  Biggest fish this past week were 15.5lbs and 16.5lbs, both were released.  The salmon are still hanging around adding a couple fish to our bag each day, but nothing spectacular.  Looks like a great week of weather is in the forecast so fishing should be very good.  Big fish released today went 12 & 14lbs.

Happy 1st Anniversary - Jen & Jake

8/17/05 - We have had quite a few west winds lately which make the water temperature fluctuate widely.  The warm water we like is just a layer on the surface that gets blown off shore with the wind and the cold water comes up.  This doesn't stop the fish from biting it just rearranges them, sometimes daily making my job of figuring them out a little more difficult.  Lately we have been catching good numbers of lake trout and a few more salmon than in the past few weeks.  

8/11/05 - We finally completed the Lake Superior North Shore Slam (just made up that name) in one morning of fishing.  What is the slam you ask?  Catching all the species we normally catch here on the North Shore - Lake trout, Steelhead, King Salmon, Coho Salmon and Pink Salmon.  This day we had a pure slam with no duplicates of any species until the slam was complete.  The picture shows 4 of the 5, we had to let the steelhead go because it was a wild fish.

8/8/05 - A great run of calm winds and great weather came to an end last week.  A couple days the waves were up a little which made fishing a little tougher but the fish were still biting none the least.  Saturday's blow stirred up the water enough to drop the surface temp from 60 to 40 in one day.  This tends to re-organize the fish, but that didn't stop us from catching our limit.  A promising weather forecast this week should get them back into a good pattern.  Lake trout continue to bite very well with a token salmon or two every trip.  Steelhead are also hitting consistently and making our drags scream.

Congratulations to the newly weds - Jim & Holly

7/31/05 - Another true hog of a fish was landed today.  22.5lbs but only 36" long, talk about some major girth (photo), it was released.  Lake trout fishing continues to be excellent, salmon are spotty catching a few here and there.  Not that we catch a lot of them but this is the best year I have seen for steelhead.

7/29/05 - Quick turn around from the Bayfield DNR.  Here is their response about our tagged fish, the fish was 32 3/4" long when caught and we did release it.

"We tagged it on 10/20/93 at Gull Island Shoal (eastern Apostle Islands) as part of our fall lake trout spawning assmt. It was a female of native origin and was 28.4 inches long. I estimate the age of this fish at 26 years old."

It never ceases to amaze me how far fish will travel or how old these lake trout get.  

7/27/05 - Tougher fishing conditions yesterday, with strong off shore winds keeping us close to shore.  Still caught our fair share of fish but had to work for them a little more.  Last week we landed about an 8-9lb lake trout that had been tagged by the Bayfield DNR.  I just sent in the tag information and will let you know what I find out.  Last year we landed a 16lb lake trout that had been tagged.  Through scale samples they took when they tagged the fish they could tell that the fish was about 29 years old and it had grown 2" in the 7 years since they tagged it.  Big fish so far for the week is a 17lb 35" laker that we released.

7/23/05 - The big fish continue to bite.  The past two weeks have been excellent for numbers and size of lake trout.  Yesterday we set a new boat record for steelhead catching 7 in one day.  All were unclipped natural fish so they were returned to the lake.  Big Lake Trout caught and released yesterday were 16lb 36", 14lb 34".  Today we released a 13.5lb laker.

7/20/05 - The wind did pick up quite a bit on Monday.  Enough so we were very limited to where we could fish.  Even with this restriction we did very well.  Tuesday brought a drop in the water temperature of 10 degrees and an awkward wind out of the South East.  Needless to say the fish didn't cooperate as well as we would have like, we did get some nice fish.  Today the water is warming back up and the fish seem to be dropping back into their previous pattern.  Big fish caught and released today was a 14.3 lb lake trout.  A really fat fish only 33" long.

7/16/05 - Lake trout fishing continues to be very productive, and now a few coho salmon are adding to the bag.  The weather has been consistently nice which has helped get the fish into a pattern that we can follow.  Tomorrow the wind is predicted  to pick up, we will see what changes it brings.

Congratulations to the newly weds - Kirk & Becky

7/13/05 - Still hot and calm but boy are the fish biting.  Surface water temps reached 72F, higher than I have ever seen it.  If you have ever wanted to swim in Lake Superior, do it now these temperatures are fleeting.  Another lunker made it to the boat today. Twelve year old Christian landed the fish after a lengthy battle.  Twenty two pounds, 38" it was released (photo).  We have had a few other fish on that I am sure would be pushing this mark as well, although we failed to land them.  First Coho salmon in the boat today as well.

Happy Birthday - Christian

7/10/05 - Hot and calm -- pretty much sums it up.  Last two days there has hardly been a puff of breeze.  This makes for very difficult catching.  Boating is great, we see a lot of fish, but it is quite difficult to get them to bite.  Today not a lot of fish made it to the boat, but the ones that did were quality.  The biggest was a 41" lake trout that tipped the scale at 23.5 lbs (photo).  A gorgeous fish that was released to fight again another day.  Look for more big fish in the near future.

7/7/05 - Happy 4th of July to all.  The rain decided to show at the most inopportune times, such as the Tofte parade and during the Fire Works.  Still a great day and fun had by everyone in attendance.  Ready for a couple fish tales?  Yesterday was the day the big ones got away.  Four big ones to be exact.  The first fish had us trying to figure out if we were snagged or not.  When it decided to swim away it left or hook behind.  Fish two took the bait and didn't stop taking line off the reel.  Unfortunately the hook couldn't keep up.  Fish three hit so hard I almost couldn't get the rod out of the holder, miss number three.  Fish four we had on for a about 30 seconds before it went limp.  When we reeled up the line we had a 12" partially digested herring hooked through the tail.  Seems we caught the fish's previous dinner. 

Today one big one didn't get away. We started the morning with a 34" 14lb lake trout.  The big ones are starting hit very well.

6/29/05 - Less than ideal weather the last few days has made fishing a little more difficult than normal.  Today was a bust with waves building to the point where we had to cancel the trip.  The forecast for the next few days is more of the same, but the 4th of July weekend is looking like it will be very nice.

Congratulations to the newly weds - Carl & Maija

6/26/05 - Good fishing continues this past week.  Limits of lakers in the 3-7lb range have been common.  We had good water temps near shore recently, but that can be deceiving.  River water from all the recent rain warmed the near shore waters to near ideal temps.  This would normally mean the fish are up off the bottom feeding near the surface.  However the water is tinted brown and doesn't draw the fish up like clear water of the same temperature.  Yesterday we did catch a fish that was full of terrestrial insects, so time for catching fish near the surface is near.  What's the big deal?  This draws the lunkers up from the depths and into our lines.  The Memorial Weekend Tofte Charters crew members made it into our local paper (Cook County News-Herald) this past week.  To read the article click here.

Another interesting story for the birders out there.  An interesting bird showed up at Taconite Harbor this past week.  Not finding it in my bird book, I asked the local birders and they responded with my answer.  It is an Egyptian Goose, a picture is posted on the photos page.  Instead of being an unusual find it turns out to be most likely a domestic bird that has gone astray.  Although I can add it to my bird list.  If you are interested in seeing the goose, it was still hanging around as of yesterday.

6/16/05 - Finally a nice stretch of weather and the fish are starting to hit very well.  Previously we were working for every fish that we caught.  Now they are starting to work their way up in the water column as the water warms, feeding more aggressively as they go.  The weather forecast is for sunny days and temps into the 70's for the next week.  Fishing should just keep on improving.

5/30/05 - Happy Memorial Day.  What a great weekend, lots of sunshine, warm temps and light breezes.  Couldn't have picked better days to be on the water.  We wish for many more days like this to follow.

Happy 3rd Birthday - Ty

5/23/05 - Finally a fine spring day!  Sun shining, 60 degrees with light winds ... and no one wanted to go fishing.  The weather did allow us to get on the water this weekend.  Although it was foggy and rained at times, the fish didn't seem to mind.  A limit of lake trout each trip makes the weather not so bad.  Memorial weekend is coming up and I still have a couple openings.  Now is time to take advantage of my Spring Special - 20% OFF all charters in May 2005.

5/16/05 - Back on the water and the fish are biting.  First fish of the year for the second year in a row was a king salmon.  If this is any kind of indicator we are in for another great year of fishing.  For those of you that have been out with me before there has been a few changes since last year.  So don't worry if you don't see my boat sitting at Bluefin.  We now live in Schroeder, but still provide all the services as before.  Our toll free number has also changed to 866-663-9932.  The local number stayed the same 218-663-9932.  Hope to see you soon on the water!   

1-866-663-9932 or (218)663-9932