Conservation

Fall Warmwater Fishing

Hansi Johnson October 21, 2024

If I had to pick one season to fish in Minnesota it might be autumn.

Minnesota in the fall is a perfect paradise.  For one thing the biting bugs are dead, for another the weather is just right and of course the biggest thing is that the fishing is on fire!  Winter is coming and the Pike and the Bass are moving to the deeper weed lines, they are easy to locate and they are looking to pack on the weight before the darkness of winter comes.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes, that is a lot of fishable water!  

Living in Duluth, Minnesota I have easy access to the border waters between Minnesota and Canada. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a world class Mecca for warmwater fishing. Its human powered backcountry access insures limited pressure, even on the most popular lakes. To access the BWCA is hard work though, and it can be a tough place to haul new fly anglers that you are hoping to teach about conservation.

There is another spot in Minnesota’s border waters that has easier access. Voyageurs National Park is nearly 300,000 acres of water, filled with trophy Bass and Pike as well as Walleye, Lake Trout and Musky. Voyageurs National Park can only be accessed by watercraft. 

As part of the engagement work that I am lucky to do for the Minnesota Land Trust I organize a trip for some of our Major supporters.  Many of them are new anglers looking to experience the relatively intact ecosystems of the National Park.  The goal is to expose folks to a place where nature is in some semblance of balance and illustrate the work, we are trying to do in our Conservation efforts in the rest of the state.

For the gig I rent a 64-foot houseboat and two skiffs to tow behind it. We base camp the houseboat on Lake Kabetogama or Namakan Lake, then access all those thousands of acres of fishable park via small boats.  Our group generally targets large Pike and Smallmouth Bass, but there is no doubt that an occasional Walleye or Lake Trout hits the hot butter at some point in the trip.  In addition to running and hitting the big water in the Park via boat, we also gear up and hike into the Parks interior Lakes for Musky and for Lake Trout.  Voyageurs is the perfect place to take new fly anglers as it has tons of accessible water, willing fish and enough variety to keep it all interesting.

Fly Fishing is the perfect mechanism to teach the idea of land-based conservation.  What happens on Terra Firma ultimately impacts the ecosystems that exist in our lakes and rivers.  What an amazing way to illustrate to folks the power of protecting land and how it impacts our natural world but also how it impacts their own outdoor experiences.