this year due to some scheduling conflicts our trip wont be until early august, whereas my previous 9 trips were all early june.

naturally the fishing lures/equipment i bring will be different. ive done a little sorting already and am favoring heavier jigs for deeper water applications, larger deeper diving crankbaits, and brighter colors as the deeper water blocks more light.

this year it will also just be 2 of us, my older brother and myself. we plan to do some night fishing as well as early early morning outings. the brighter colors will help in this style of fishing also i think. by brighter i mean more firetiger/clown/uv patterns.

my standard canada fishing lure trays consisted of 15 ft taildancers, deep shad body xraps, and 1/8 oz jigs and ringworms.

this year, its bigger brighter deeper stuff... i have a fairly wide array of musky equipment but its hard for me to justify bringing one large bait that takes the same space as 4-5 smaller ones.

what do you guys bring in august?

I think the first thing I would want to know is what kind of fish you are after.  As far as night fishing, I have tried it and don't like it.  Everything is just too difficult in the dark even with a headlamp.  I have gone in late August and have worked my way down to 20 and 30 feet tail dancers.  My experience is that the larger fish are deeper.  As far as lake trout are concerned, you probably need to get down at least 40 feet to get to their desired temperature.

I'm not a fan of August fishing, but here is what I would do. Fish early & late in day. Use larger size lures to match the hatch. Troll everywhere. Be erratic with retrieves. Pray.

we will mainly be trying to come across a trophy walleye/pike/trout. we want enough walleyes for a 2 man fish fry, so one decent sized fish a day, and the rest of the time we will be after trout. im not a huge fan of august fishing either, but this is when it worked out for the group.. well, moreso when we 'thought' it would work and the plans fell through anyway and it was too late for a june trip.

Jax,
My main trips each year are from the beginning of August until Labor Day and I like to fish.  As I'm sure you're aware, if you want to catch Walleye and Lakers that time of year you'll have to get down deep.  That being said, how deep really depends on the year.  For example, two years ago I was fishing between 50 and 60 feet down for good size Lakers.  Last year I only had to get down to 30 - 35 feet.  The issue is the water temp.  Lakers like it between 48 and 55 degrees.  I have a little Fish Hawk gauge that gives me temp readings every 5 feet so that gives me a pretty good idea where the fish are likely to be (at least with regards to thermocline.)
As for lures.  The simplest for me when going for Walleye has been Tail Dancers.  As you probably know they come in 15, 20 and 30 foot varieties and I generally carry at least a few of each.  I have even caught a few Lakers using the 30 foot TDs (that was on Jean maybe 4 years back.)  I have had a lot of success with Fire Tiger in August but I find anything with Chartreuse to be effective.
In more recent years I have begun fishing with with snap weights.  They are a pain in the ass since they are supposed to be snapped between 30 and 50 feet up the line from the lure.  That means a hassle when reeling in.  I find just tying the weights 5 feet or so up the line is actually a lot easier.  When fishing with weights almost any lure will do.  My favourite is the Vision 110 by Mega Bass.  Expensive but very effective and I've caught everything from  Walleye and Lakers to good sized Pike using a weighted Vision.  Again the brighter colours and I always use something with Chartreuse at that time of year.
This year as I mentioned in earlier posts I'm going to try fishing with jigs.  I got a lot of good advice on this board and some great pointers and ideas about jig and safety pin spinner selection from MT.  So this year I'll be carrying a lot of jig components - safety pin spinners, various creature baits (mostly curly tail grubs in white and chartreuse) and a wide variety of jig heads in a broad range of weights from ¼ oz all the way up to 1½ oz. (The Esox jig heads that MT recommended look incredible, by the way.)  Probably overkill but I'm not sure what my preferences will be or what will work for me until I give it a shot.  We'll (my wife and I) be heading out for WCPP early in August and be on the water for a grand 23 days of pure heaven.  We count on fish for our dinners and I've never had a problem.
Good luck on your trip this August.  Trust me, it may not be the absolute best time of year for fishing but I've always caught a ton and never been disappointed. 

I brought some of these on my Spring trip.
Fishing sucked, but they do get your lure down and could turn a favorite lure into a "Deep Tail Dancer".

Added benefit you don't need a steel leader.

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Jax
I have spent a fair amount of time fishing the shield in August. I think much might depend on the lake. A few years back I had stellar fishing for size on basswood with my biggest walleye and biggest laker coming on that trip. Usually I say I'm not going in August after several poor trips so go figure. Last summers August trip was reasonably decent. I hooked one very memorable fish which pulled my boat some ten feet before breaking off and she hit shallow at dark in 15 ft.

But here is my suspicion and it is a strong suspicion. I like to travel so my mornings are usually spent breaking camp and moving on down the road a bit. I usually fish late and with only the Basswood trip as a notable exception late evening fishing in August is usually poor.

If I were base camp fishing in August my focus would be very, very, very early in the morning. Did I mention fishing early? I think I might of. I would get up while it was still dark and be on the water as soon as it was light enough to see. I think the big girls could be quite vulnerable up to about 9 and then my guess it is over. Go back to bed for a few hours.

Then in the afternoon I would concentrate on jigging spoons which provoke fish to bite wether they are hungry or not. They don't have to hunt something down and kill it like with a crank bait but rather instinct kicks in to kill the injured erratic fluttering piece of annoying metal which is just daring something to end its suffering. Of course good electronics would be vital to pinpoint key areas, the fish will show up while trolling your taildancers. Then drop your butterfly jig down (jigging spoon) right on their nose and pop it a few times. Braid helps........I did this on Conmee last year, that being trolled a taildancer and marked fish and dropped the spoon.......2 snaps was all it took before I was hooked up. Unfortunately the hooks pulled but the important aspect was the fish ate. Sooner or later I will spend some real quality time with the butterly jigs and give them a thorough test but they are the bomb offshore......the fish get frustrated and worked up in a lather by them.

mastertangler wrote on Jul 8^th, 2014 at 2:58pm:

If I were base camp fishing in August my focus would be very, very, very early in the morning. Did I mention fishing early?

And I would stay in bed.  August fishing can be more of a challenge but our experience is that you have to be able to pull yourself away from the shoreline structure, find something mid-lake and be wiling to fight the wind.  (If you're solo this can be difficult I understand.)  Also, bigger lakes seem to fish better than the smaller ones later in the summer.  I don't think I have ever fished deeper than 30' between August and October. 

During this time of year we enjoy watching the fish feed at night.  When it's dark, go down to the waters edge and of you have an incandescent flashlight you can often watch the walleye and SM eating crayfish.

we actually were planning on doing a lot of early morning fishing and some night stuff. being that it will just be my older brother and i, the smaller group allows us a bit more flexibility in terms of experimentation. also, i work nights so being up at weird hours and sleeping during the day is my usual.

and we also planned on more vertical jigging. im a really big tube jig fan, so i will be bringing some 4" white tubes and a giant hair jig. i will take a look at some vertical spoons as well

PJ probably has the key piece of advice Jax.......mid lake reefs are quite likely the most important piece of the equation. You can't catch them where they ain't. I still like mornings when you don't have to fight the wind and the fish still have the feedbag out. I like bigger more complex reefs with deep water nearby. I was catching dandy walleye off a big reef in basswood over 70 ft of water running a big taildancer which might of been down 28ft a few Augusts past. The reef topped out around 12 ft but the nice ones where hanging out around the deep edges over open water.

This year August might be different. After all, what's been normal about this year?

I'd say that if this year's weather patterns hold up, you may use your July fishing tactics thru the end of August.  However, if it does get hot in a hurry, I'd go with the recommendations of hitting reefs with access to deep water on larger lakes.

Speaking of fishing in the wind, a few years ago (after a week on Pickeral in August) Pascanel and I developed a canoe stabilizer that slows you canoe and allows you to drift at a slower pace than the wind speed.  We call them 'seal fins' and they mount to the windward side of your canoe.  They are no bigger than the blade of a canoe paddle and no worries with fish tangling in a rope as is always the problem with a drift sock.  These essentially do the same thing as a drift sock but slide on/off your gunnel.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  I have the drawn plans around here somewhere . . .  :-/