The Ultimate Fishing Guide To The BWCA (species-by-species breakdown!)

hey guys how's it going today today i'm going to get into how to catch the top four most targeted species of fish in the bwca and when i'm talking the four species the four top targeted species in this area i'm talking small mouth bass northern pike lake trout and of course walleyes that's the top four now if you watch the end of this video i also have a fifth species that i'm going to share at the end so stay tuned for that my son and i just returned from a trip from up there and we were super successful on a bunch of different species targeting them specifically and that's what i want to show you guys how to do that being said if you don't know what the bwca is it's called the boundary waters canoe area wilderness or just bwca for short it's a really cool area almost 2 million acres of preserved wilderness in northeastern minnesota it lies just on the border of canada and it's filled with hundreds and hundreds of super clean clear rocky canadian shield type glacial lakes and these lakes are full of fish and they are some of the least pressured fish in the lower 48 so some of these fish have absolutely never seen a lure in their life so it's a it's a great fishery and also there's a lot of lakes in the area in the surrounding area not just inside the bwca that offer great fishing and easier access and for the purpose of this video i'm going to talk about all lakes in the area and refer to all of them as the bwca so to fish in this area you may need to know the basics of wilderness camping and i'm not going to cover that in this video i'm going to let you watch some other youtube videos on the camping part we're just covering fishing now before we get into the actual fish themselves i would really like to get into some of the gear and some of the wilderness specific stuff that we're going to bring on this trip that kind of pertain to all the species and before we get into the gear i will let you know i'm going to link all this gear and tackle down below in the description so you can find any of the stuff i'm talking about here in the links in the description so when i go to the boundary waters i only need two rods really and these are the two most important ones you can bring number one is going to be my six foot six to seven foot medium light fast action graphite spinning rod this is going to cover a lot of different finesse situations that you're going to run into up there you know throwing ned rigs for small mouth 8 ounce jigs for walleyes light slip bobber rigs this one's going to cover it now i also bring along a medium or medium heavy uh six foot six to seven foot spinning rod as well and that's the cover of bigger swim baits you know spoons stuff like that you're throwing for pike i've got this one spooled with a 2000 diawa riveros and i've got this one spooled up with a 2500 diawa regal both great reels i'll link those in the description i've got 10-pound braid on my medium light i've got 15-pound braid on my medium and that should cover your rods another item you're going to need is some kind of tackle bag and this one i just bought for this trip and we took it up there last week and it was absolutely fantastic this the pissy fun tackle backpack and the reason i like it is it's got nice padding here it's got backpack straps it's got a nice open top in there to put like uh spools of line you know any even your lunch can go in the top pocket you've got a spot for four 3600 tackle boxes down here and then you've got tons of side pockets so i go a little bit heavy on tackle when i go into the boundary waters compared to some people this is a perfect setup for me and even if you want to go light you can double this as like a day pack and like i said put all kinds of other items in here like your first aid kit and there's tons of room so it's great for going over portages and we had great luck with this pack so another thing you're going to need if you ever want to anchor up in the boundary waters is a simple anchor rope and basketball net and the reason we use this is no one wants to carry an anchor over portages so we usually bring two we bring one for the bow one for the stern you pick up a rock at the end of your portage put it in the net in the basketball net and then i clip it shut with a little carabiner and now you've got an anchor that you didn't have to carry over that portage all right guys here's the big one for me this is the game changer when it comes to the boundary waters and that is sonar this is a bit controversial some people don't want to bring their sonar with they want to have that wilderness experience and they don't want to have it along i want to have the wilderness experience but i also want to catch a lot of fish and i'm telling you right now if we had not brought this along we would not have caught half of the fish that we caught on this trip now to do a boundary water trip where you're portaging with sonar you have to have a special setup for that there's a bracket on my canoe that this just slides right into and all i have to do is tighten this nut down and i'm installed so i can fold this whole setup up in my pack and then install it on the canoe when i get to the end of my portage and then this arm is also i can fold this right up i can slide this together i can fold my transducer alongside of it and it fits right in my pack and then this arm just goes in the water as i fish and you can bring an ice fishing type transducer but the problem is when you're moving it's going to swing back and not work this one works as i'm trolling as i'm moving i can see what's going on down there it's an absolutely great system so i will link this in the description as well i just happen to have this lowrance hook 7 and that's what i'm using but they make some really good more portable units that are a little bit smaller garmin makes a really good one forgot what it's called but i'll link it in this description tons of people use it in the boundary water so and i'm running this off of my vexilar lithium 9 amp hour battery and i tested this out before i left and i put this on demo mode like it is now and i ran it for 24 hours straight didn't run out of battery so i think you could really get away with the nine volt nine amp hour lithium battery for most of a trip if not the whole trip and it's very light very packable all right another item you're going to want to bring is an old-fashioned chain strainer we don't have live wells in the boundary waters when we're canoeing this is a great way to keep your catch alive and in the water um and it just keeps them fresh keeps them cold all right as far as live bait goes leeches are probably the number one bait to take to the boundary waters for all species they're easy to take care of you just keep them in one of these leech lockers keep them in the water and when you move you can pull them out of the water set them in your canoe so they're not dragging then just drop them in the water again some guys bring crawlers which i did and you just have to be aware that you need to keep those crawlers cool either put them in the shade and kind of bury them with some moss to keep them cool you can keep them in your cooler if you have ice but crawlers are another option minnows are much tougher to move around they're much tougher to bring into wilderness areas so a lot of guys just stick with the leeches and crawlers all right guys now that we have gear covered let's get into the fish let's start with lake trout if there's a fish that really embodies what the boundary waters is all about it's the lake trout these fish only live in the coldest clearest deepest lakes in the area and they're one of the most fun fish to catch they're delicious hard fighting aggressive fish and they can grow to really really large sizes so lake trout are roamers basically they can be pelagic meaning they can they can roam anywhere in the basin in open water they can relate to structure they can be shallow they can be deep so oftentimes they're very hard to pinpoint which is why trolling is typically the the best way to catch lake trout and that's what we did in the on this last trip so trolling shallow for lake trout is really easy just find any kind of good sized crank bait that dives to 10 to 15 feet fish around you know those 10 to 20 foot breaks in the springtime when those fish are shallow and you probably have some pretty good luck uh catching them and you can also troll heavier spoons like little clios and stuff as well i like to set up for lake trout right in that 1.7 to 2 miles an hour and that's another great reason to bring a sonar with the gps like the one i brought you can actually tell your speed and that's going to help you dial in that troll now when you're trolling deep for lake trout well let's go check it out i'll i took a video while we were up there and i'll show you exactly how we were catching them on uh snap weights to get our baits down and limit out on a nice batch of lakers first one finally oh yeah oh yeah lake trout in the box with that weight yep 20 feet deep that's where they want to be beautiful little eater lake trout i'm gonna try not to flip this one drop it try not to flip this one in the lake like i did with jackson's walleye but that is a cool fish 20 feet deep we're using a three ounce snap weight and a spoon that's the first one but we lost two already so i think we're on them fish okay when you get to the sinker swing your rod back to me and then lift okay wow he's fighting hard he might be a bigger one okay i'll just lift your outfit yeah nice that's the biggest one yet awesome yes these are way better than those little smallmouth hooked up to another laker oh that one's a little bigger good thing i netted him he came right off good job thanks another good eater hey lake trout limit all right we just finished up our limitle acres and i'm going to show you exactly how we caught these fish we came uh we did start shallow and the fish just weren't shallow we tried casting and all we were catching was smallmouth but to go deeper in the boundary waters the easiest way to do that is with snap weights so i've got here is my clip and a ring and then these slip in snap weights which are really slick because you can change the size on them super easy i'll leave a link for this stuff in the description but i've got that only about five feet ahead of my bait on an eight pound leader which in this case our best bait was these cast masters we tried a couple other spoons but the cast masters were definitely the deal today so just that snap weight i was going with about two ounces uh two to three ounces and we were getting down to about 20 feet and that's where the fish were so we just kept coming over this reef back and forth and uh that seemed to do the trick so that was a fun time huh bud so there you have it pretty easy to get those snap weights just clip them on the line ahead of your spoon or your crank bait get that extra depth so there's other ways to get your bait down there as well you know if those fish are hanging in that 25 to 30 foot you can use a like a rappel a tail dancer a deep diving stick bait to get that bait down there especially on light braid that's going to hit like that 20 plus foot and typically that's as deep as you're going to find lake trout oftentimes up here they're going to suspend at that thermocline 20 to 25 feet that's where the siskels hang out and you control at that depth you know with either the snap weights or a deep diving crankbait even in the summertime over the basin and catch these lake trout you can catch in the springtime casting spoons up on the shoreline as well but as far as catching a lot of lake trout consistently trolling is the way to go all right let's move on to smallmouth bass smallmouth are found in most lakes in the bwca and sometimes in really good numbers and really good size the nice thing about smallmouth is they can be caught throughout the day in any conditions shallow water most of the year rocks are almost always the key for smallmouth you want to be fishing rocks and especially any rocks that are on a flat and then towards the edge of that flat where it starts to drop into deeper water that's a great place to start for smallies so casting jigs casting ned rigs um casting small spinners wacky rigged senkos or my personal favorite paddle tail swimbaits are all great ways to catch smallmouth there's almost so many ways to catch them on artificials that i really recommend you just bring a few of your favorites that you're confident in otherwise you're gonna end up bringing almost too much gear so just take three or four methods that you're confident in and start with those now they can also be caught really really uh easily on live bait it's a great way to keep kids busy you know just put a leech on a slip bobber on the edge of one of those rock flats and hang on because you're going to catch smallmouth now later in the summer these small mouth may move deeper during the day and you can catch them on like a drop shot rig on the edges of some of the the deeper rock humps but in the evening and morning they will move shallow and it's prime time for a really good top water bite so bring those zara spooks bring those whopper ploppers and hit those evening evening bites up in the shallow water on those rock shoals and that can be an absolute blast as well all right on to northern pike the most aggressive toothiest fish of the bunch so to find pike in any lake if it has weeds start there pike are weed fish they love to hang in those weeds and ambush prey and starting in the spring you can find them in the backs of the muddiest shallowest bays where the weeds are just starting to come up and they'll be in even a couple feet of water but they may be very spooky so you gotta back off of them make long casts but it's a great place to start catching them in the weeds and then as the summer progresses they're gonna move out away from those shallow bays and out to the edges of deeper cabbage beds and they'll stay there the whole summer as long as there's good weed growth and cool enough water now some lakes may not have weeds at all in the boundary waters and then those lakes you want to fish those rocky points with big boulders on them and anywhere there's vertical structure so like fallen trees is another place to catch pike they like to have somewhere to hide in between the rocks or in tree branches or weeds to ambush their prey get it all the way in the water all right we got our pike and uh we've been trolling all over the place and hadn't really got any bites after our first one right away right here and we came back and i just saw a giant and then hooked this one i'm going to measure this one right now see how long it is it's a nice fish got that fish on a mini double cowgirl which is a pretty sweet pike bait i figured it would work up here sure enough we did we're gonna let this fish go so pike can be caught by casting or trolling i prefer to cast for them my favorite casting baits would be number one a large bucktail or map spinner number two probably a paddle tail swim bait on a heavy jig head and probably something in the five to six inch range and uh and then number three would be some kind of jerk bait so like a husky jerk or some kind of you know any kind of stick bait that that mimics a bait fish they really key in on those with that jerk paws jerk paws retrieve as far as trolling you can also troll troll those baits the husky jerks the stick baits and crank baits and then you can also troll heavier spoons like little clios dr spoons daredevils and that can be super productive for cover and water as well with pike anywhere be sure to use a wire leader or heavy fluorocarbon leader if you don't want to get bit off and lose lures because these fish will cut your line with the teeth so just make sure you've got something heavy on the front of that bait if you're targeting those pike now the fish we've all been waiting for of course is the iconic walleye if you want to catch a lot of walleyes especially on any clear lake you're probably going to have to fish until dark walleyes are nighttime feeding fish they really stay fairly dormant oftentimes until the last hour of light a slip bobber and a leech has probably accounted for more walleyes than all other methods combined the reason is simple it's attractive to walleyes any time of year it's an easy live bait to carry in you can position your bait exactly where you want it and the biggest factor up here is you don't get snagged up if you're running lindy rigs on some of these rock piles and stuff you're going to lose a lot of rigs because there's just so many rocks so that's one of the reasons uh slip bobbers outperform a lot of bottom techniques all you really have to do is anchor up in like 15 feet of water on any rock point an hour before dark two hours before dark and just set up those slip bobbers so they're a foot to two feet off the bottom with that leech just hovering above the bottom and just wait wait them out and they will move up onto those rocks to feed in the evenings so you're gonna probably catch walleyes in the boundary waters doing this it's it's one of the most reliable fishing techniques up there and you'll probably catch some smallmouth and stuff too while you're waiting uh very likely now just because walleyes are a nighttime feeding fish doesn't mean you can't catch them during the day and we actually had some really good luck the last couple trips up there trolling the deeper edges of drop offs and rock piles with crawler harnesses so bring some one ounce bottom bouncers or some three quarter to one ounce slip weights and just set up a troll at one to one point five miles an hour even a drift across you know just down a bank that has a lot of rock on it and just uh kind of tap the bottom once in a while with that weight but you don't need to drag the weight on the bottom you can be above bottom and that spinner just hovers along with that blade spinning and you you can just cover a ton of water with that technique and you're gonna find some aggressive walleyes even during the daytime well jackson and i are on our way into the boundary waters this morning and uh we're getting onto the portage here in a little bit we did pretty well yesterday on the smallmouth but the wind was terrible on this lake i mean it was like 30 40 mile an hour gusts but we still managed to catch about a dozen nice smallies get enough for dinner so today we're actually going into the boundary waters we're almost to the portage and hopefully this will be a really good fishing in here where we're going so all right this is how you take a rest with the canoe when you're portaging just find a branch you can lean your canoe up on get out from underneath it then you can step right back in and don't forget to bring your bug spray and your head net all the mosquitoes buddy beautiful lake though jackson's got a fish on good job buddy i'm gonna extend the net here so just bring him up next to you and i'll try another nice good job buddy [Music] awesome that's dinner right there well we managed to get a couple nice eaters here and uh jackson had a nice one too and dad let him jump kind of out of his hands into the water but we got plenty for dinner so we figured out they were biting crawler harnesses and uh it was slow fishing but we got a few so all right guys i think we've covered the top four species that people go after in the boundary waters now let's cover the bonus species number five and that is stream trout in stocked trout lakes these fish are an absolute blast to catch you can get the list from the minnesota dnr website on which lakes are stocked with witch trout and it's typically rainbows and brook trout but there are some browns stocked in these lakes and they get big i'm talking well over 20 inches we've caught them rainbows and brook trout up there so the best way to catch them is to set up a slip bobber rig with a crawler and set it six to eight feet below the surface you don't have to be on structure or near bottom because these fish will roam the water column just like lake trout will although i have had better luck fishing shorelines and if you see trout rising definitely go over and try that area because you know there's trout around so you can cast spoons or small spinners for them as well or troll one little known secret actually is to catch really big brook trout we have trolled the same spinner crawler harnesses that we troll for walleyes and that's one of the best ways to cover water and give them that crawler with a little bit of flash to attract them and that works really well and i would definitely recommend giving that a try because these fish are an absolute blast to catch and they're delicious as well so fun for kids lots of action all right jackson and i just paddled into a little stream trout lake and we just set up a slip bobbers here and see if we can get a few stream trout this evening and uh mostly rainbows in here from what i understand so we're just setting them like 10 feet down we'll start there and we've already seen some trout rippling around us so we know they're in here okay first rainbow on nice little guy oh eater another rainbow [Music] there we go nice two for two jackson just missed one so all right we got three rainbows down and uh we can keep a total of ten of these so hopefully we can get seven more before it gets dark here but we're figuring it out we're dropping our bobbers about six to eight feet down under the surface and that seems to be doing the trick fish on i got one here jackson's got one there flip just flip them in the canoe well that's a nice one too hey nice job nice job doubled up doubled up jackson's on him jackson's on him [Music] that'll be number six if you land him why don't you worry about landing that one before we start counting them oh i got my i got mine oh this is the biggest this one yet whoa oh look at that one [Music] you got a bluegill i got a nice fat one look at that guy that's a beaut beautiful little rainbows here good eating awesome fish fun to catch kids love them it's a good time we got two left to go but don't think we'll have any trouble getting our last two here another keeper [Music] oh yeah one more buddy all right we just got our limit of 10. nice rainbows these are stocked trout put and take these things are going to be delicious and all we did was slip over them six to eight feet down along the shoreline just look for ripples look for uh looks for fish kind of coming up and surfacing and there was a ton of them in here so it wasn't too difficult but a lot of fun huh buddy so hopefully that covers pretty much everything you need to go to just go up and catch a whole bunch of fish in the bwca um you can certainly watch one of these two videos to learn more about some of these techniques and maybe we'll see you up there get hooked up guys jackson i just found a new island i'm not sure what we found here but don't forget to love each other [Music] not much love in the bush is there [Music]

Channel: hookedupwi

Views: 33,202

Keywords: bwca, bwcaw, boundary waters, bwca canoe, canoe, wilderness, camping, tent, paddle, lake trout, rainbow trout, walleye, trolling, quetico

Id: 0FYHhQcGqzU

Length: 26min 3sec (1563 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2022