a few years ago we traveled through Wicksteed, Argo, Darky, and Ballard and noticed the exceptional clarity of the water.  I am not used to fishing super clear water, with most of my experience on the darker, stained systems.  Does high water clarity require using smaller baits in Quetico?  Also, does it influence what colors work better than others?

I have a fair amount of experience in fishing super clear waters. There is also much in print about fishing super clear waters via In-fisherman etc.

Much depends on your time of year but I will assume you are going june, july, august, sept. Argo is my idea of super clear water. I have found the less obtrusive your line is the more likely you can fool mr big. If big smallys are your goal and you are fishing plastics then I drop to 6 and often 4lb test. This means small hooks as large hooks are hard to tie and set with puny line. The straight tailed robo worms (4") on a 1/16 or 1/8 oz jig head is deadly. Of course conditions have to be right (as in fairly calm) and you need to know where they are. Bad searching tool unless you are patient, they will generally bite it if you put it in front of them.

The other equalizer is a jigging spoon. The erratic action will trigger a strike regardless the lb test. Again you need to know where they are.

If it is not to late in the summer a big topwater  will bring big fish up from depths as deep as 25ft. It needs to make a quite a mess on top to get their attention. Earlier in the summer smaller topwaters will take smallys. Topwater is a great way to fool a big fish in clear water.

As per walleyes I will stick with cranks tending to be long and run deep. I fish fast with them and run then primarily on 8lb test. Please avoid tying 8lb test to the split ring and get the little clips I advocate and use a tie-fast tool to tie a gryp knot. Clearly superior. 

Pike are still eating but tend to get  into a time pattern (eating during a slim and repetitive time window).later in the summer and typically eat something big and then hunker down. They are much like lake trout and are a cold water fish gravitating to preferred temps. Find a spring and you could be into pike city without having to fish deep to find cooler water.

Of course this is just my experience and can be poked full of all sorts of holes as fish will not always do what they have been told........

BTW......try slow rolling single blade dark single arm spinnerbaits in deeper water at night during summer. 25ft is about right. Hang on as they hit it really hard.......heavy line, no trailer, large black single colorado blade. Brown, black or deep purple skirt.

Thanks for the thoughts MT.  BTW, I'm heading up in one month and I plan to give the Lake Trout a good look at the micro dawg.  Just drop it down to them and jig it back up!

gfy_paddler wrote on Jul 10^th, 2013 at 3:46pm:

Thanks for the thoughts MT.  BTW, I'm heading up in one month and I plan to give the Lake Trout a good look at the micro dawg.  Just drop it down to them and jig it back up!

I am perhaps the last guy to point this out considering the several nice fish I gave a death sentence to last year on Basswood........but

If you jig the lakers out of deep water the potential for them expriring would be rather high it seems to me. On the other hand, last august I had a couple of good days catching them in a schedulded bay on Basswood and all but the big momma swam away just fine. Of course I wasn't dragging them up  via jigging from deep water either but they were hitting a crank bait in some 28ft. Anyway, if they are just sinking out of sight after the release i would hope we are on the same page.

gfy_paddler wrote on Jul 10^th, 2013 at 3:46pm:

Thanks for the thoughts MT.  BTW, I'm heading up in one month and I plan to give the Lake Trout a good look at the micro dawg.  Just drop it down to them and jig it back up!

I am perhaps the last guy to point this out considering the several nice fish I gave a death sentence to last year on Basswood........but

If you jig the lakers out of deep water the potential for them expriring would be rather high it seems to me. On the other hand, last august I had a couple of good days catching them in a schedulded bay on Basswood and all but the big momma swam away just fine. Of course I wasn't dragging them up  via jigging from deep water either but they were hitting a crank bait in some 28ft. Anyway, if they are just sinking out of sight after the release i would hope we are on the same page.

we are on the same page.  I don't want to hurt the fish, obviously.

Didn't mean to insinuate anything......

but back to fish talk......I found it quite surprising to catch the lakers I did in August on a dropoff while trolling for walleye. Typical drop, not to steep, not gently sloping.......deep water was nearby but it was much the same throughout many miles of bottom that I trolled the previous days with zero lake trout.

I think I caught 4 lakers in the bay in a couple of hours so it was not a lucky shot in the dark. I can't remember if the elite 4  lowrance has a temp indicator but that should of been the first thing I should of noticed. Ya gotta admit......little bit weird, catching lakers in August on the 28ft contour line. Good spot as it also produced a dandy walleye. Big fish country. What made it unique I'm not quite sure although I have some suspicions.

for clear water, in depths up to 20 ft, i like rapala x raps in the shad body. i like the translucent nature of this line of lures. gives more flash than an opaque one. deeper than 20 ft, i like longer more slender minnow lures, namely deep husky jerks in natural patterns

hey Jax I have my superman colored believers finally. Now that looks like a clear water lure if I have ever seen one. Hooks need sharpening though that is for sure....

Dig this...........my intention is to use a walleye in-line weight some 18" above it connected by single stand super thin coffee colored wire. Braid right to the in-line weight. The effect is two fold.......first off I probably get another 6 or 8 feet out of the lure but you also promote the concept of one fish following another.....bigger fish always look for such activity as smaller fish are easier to munch if they are preoccupied.

check these out......I have good luck running crawler harnesses behind these weights, they are very sweet with ball bearing swivels and life like finishes, plus they run well with weights as heavy as 3 oz. It will be interesting puttin a Believer on its tail in hot pursuit. Can you say ""chomp"  :)

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hell, id eat those. i think i would be too tempted to put a hook on those things which would be illegal up there if you had something trailing behind it.

i cant remember where but i read something about a guy that used small squarebill type cranks, painted all black, as a means to bring smaller rubber worms down to the bottom and not get hooked. he took the hooks off of the crank and tied a 3 foot leader to the rear hook to the worm

Give it a try sometime. Very common practice in salt water where guys will actually up the size of their swivels and get nice shiny stainless ones to put in front of the lures to promote the concept of fish "feeding" on each other and having a little bit to much fun on the big boys turf.

The 3 oz size will have no problem taking a flutter spoon or a rapala down deep. If you were to couple that combo with a line counter reel and a depth finder you could do some serious damage trolling just off the bottom without fear of getting hung all the time. Sweet set up. 8-)