Mike, I'm sorry I can't find my map with Minn Lake on it because I wanted to give you specific directions and not rely on my memory. It has been about 4 yrs. since I was on Minn but if you have luck anywhere near what I did you won't have trouble with getting your first Smallie over 4 lbs. We were on the western end of Minn. There is a LOT of blow downs along the west shorline. The best fishing we had was along the right hand shorline as you enter Minn from the portage out of McAree. This is a long granite shoreline and the best part was further away from the portage. You'll come to a large granite boulder point with a small bay past it and we camped just the other side of this bay from the point I just mentioned. You may not believe this but we were on our next to last day of a 10 day circuit having come back around from Brent Lake via Williams and the Darky river. (Beautiful circuit trip. What variety) Well I had been saying I was going to get up early and fish each morning at dawn but never had. This morning I awoke early and decided to slip out and fish alone. There was an unusually stiff breeze blowing for so early. I decided to paddle up to the leeward side of that granite boulder point and fish the edge of the wind blown current washing around the point. Well, when the other guys finally woke up, their first sight was of a tail-walking Smallie around 5+ lbs. In the 45 mins. I fished that morning on that one point I caught and released about 8 Smallies all over 4 lbs. and a bunch of little ones. That evening one of the other guys decided to fish alone and he started at that same point working back towards the portage coming from McAree and in about a 150 yard stretch he also had about 6 - 8 fish over 4 lbs. We were there in the third week of August. The Smallmouth should be there and even a bit more shallow in Sept. when you are going. That stretch is a fairly quick drop into 12-15 + ft. of water from shore. We used mostly jigs with grubs.

I'm leaving in 36 hrs. for the "Que" myself. This time we're heading to the eastern side, going into Carp Lake and the Man Chain. I wish you the best of luck. You'll all love it in that area. Please post your results upon your return and let me know how you did.

Tight Lines!!

Posted by Cowboy Kevin on August 06, 2000 at 21:33