With the setting sun splashing his growing shadow on the Lake Superior ice, Chris Beeksma abandons the portable shanty to feel an almost balmy February breeze, and sends the heavy beetle jig through the augured hole to seduce another lake trout. The journey down is a long one. Line screams off the reel for more than 90 seconds before the anticipated thud and slack announces a meeting of bottom and bait 250 feet below.
In the distance, the Wisconsin mainland near Red Cliff north of Bayfield and several of the Apostle Islands; Hermit, Basswood, Madeline adds to a natural masterpiece of endless blue skies and textured ice painted by the Superior winds.
Use of rods and reels represents a relatively recent evolution from the traditional deep water “bobbing” tactic utilized for decades to target Superior Lake Trout. Beeksma’s grandfather utilized bobbing, with an oval or straight stick to hold line and a hand-over-hand retrieval method, off of Cornucopia in the 1950s.
Catgut line initially used in bobbing evolved to nylon, to a non-stretch coated wire that continually improved the ability to entice and fight deep water trout. The instrument for holding line also evolved about 20 years ago from an oval stick to a 12-inch plastic hoop, and evolved again recently to the short rods and reels most often used today.
“Long ago, with bobbing, the fisherman would set the hook and take off running away from the hole to bring the fish up,” Beeksma said. “Hopefully, someone would be waiting at the hole to grab the fish for you. Recently thin diameter braided line with only two to six percent stretch gave us the ability to use rods and reels. Now you can fight the fish like you normally would fishing anywhere.”
Among those other good things is the locally developed Beetle Jig that flies out in a horizontal plane with the jigging motion to cover significantly more water than just that area directly below the angler. The beetle is a flat pancake of lead with a large saltwater hook molded in the top-side and with safety pins protruding from each side of the hook eye. Cut herring or shiners are placed on each pin.
“Lake trout are large predators at the top of the food chain, like muskies,” Putchat says. “They don’t eat every day. They continually move and we have to stay mobile too. It’s not like walleye fishing. We don’t set up on the same reef at the same time of day.”
“We fish for lake trout in 110 to 250 feet of water,” Beeksma said. “It seems that the deeper you go, the less chartered the water, the bigger the fish. A 20-pound fish is absolutely a possibility for anyone out here.”
BEFORE YOU GO: Safe ice off of Red Cliff near the Apostle Islands, and the ability to safely fish for lake trout is highly dependent on weather. Do not attempt this trip without consulting local experts for ice conditions, or to hire a guide.
Contact: The Bait Shack, 715-373-2380
