Pine Knot Outdoors: Fishing for the gold, silver and bronze

Back to reality. The Baker household held tightly onto summer for as long as possible. But with two kids in middle school, one in high school, another off to college, and both parents teaching, responsibilities have firmly taken over. Looking back, we spent a good chunk of the summer pursuing walleye gold, yet we wrapped up the season chasing silver.

Crappies have started their fall transition. A couple of weeks ago they were loosely packed in small pods. Our trips over the last couple of days show they have slid out to deeper water and started to congregate en masse. Targeting these fish becomes an exercise in efficiency, as they stack up in impressive numbers. Unfortunately for them, they are also too deep to hide from our electronics.

My go-to presentation is to vertical jig these fish. I slide over deeper water as I scan for telltale arcs on the graph. I drop a small jig tipped with plastic or the smallest Rapala jigging rap straight down, trying to hover just above the crappies. Positioning your boat so your transducer displays your bait and how the fish respond to your jigging cadence can also be a key part of the equation. However, for the most part, if you can maintain boat control and offer your presentation vertically just above the fish, you will boat plenty of crappies to keep you busy.

The other silver bullets I had the chance to fish this week were king salmon on Lake Superior. I have to give credit first to my brother Bruce, who allowed me to ransack his trolling gear and grab rods, Dipsys, and lures from his stash. Secondly, I leaned heavily on the advice of Captain Cameron Lindner, whoteaches at Cloquet Middle School, just a stone's throw from my classroom at CHS. Lindner also owns and operates Team Crush Outdoors, a charter service primarily focused on the big lake they call Gitche Gumme. With Bruce's equipment and Cameron's knowledge, my confidence was high.

I rolled my son David out of bed in the predawn darkness. Groggy but excited, he was eager to get rolling. Also joining us for the morning was CHS English teacher Jason Richardson. We slid the big blue Lund in at Loon's Foot boat landing in Superior minutes before sunrise. I motored us out the Superior entry onto Lake Superior; the big lake welcomed us with clear skies and a moderate chop on the water. I had purchased my Wisconsin fishing license in May, and Richardson picked up a two-day Great Lakes license that allowed us free reign on both sides of the border.

As the sun broke free of the lake, I turned driving duties over to Richardson as I set lines. I spooled out 10 colors of lead on the first setup. Ten colors put the first crankbait back an entire football field behind us and nearly 50 feet down. I ran one other lead core rod with a spoon, three Dipsy Diver rods, and one flat line off a planer board. On the Wisconsin side of the state line you can run three rods per angler. I ran out of rod holders at six, but I was happy with our trolling spread.

I was just setting the last Dipsy rod when one of the lead core rods began to bounce frantically in its rod holder. I grabbed it and pointed it high to the sky. Cushioned by 300 feet of lead, I could still feel the power of the salmon fighting ferociously at the other end. I was able to keep the battle directly behind the boat, preventing a massive tangle with the other five lines still in the water. A couple of minutes later, the chunky chrome king salmon found its way into the bottom of our net. For me, the trip was already a success.

A couple hundred yards later, David was able to hook and battle a nice lake trout that also found its way into the live well. Visions of cedar-planked grilled salmon and trout on the Big Green Egg began to creep into the back of my mind. We trolled several miles onto the big lake, reeled up, and made one long troll back to the Superior entry. We didn't stumble into any other bites, but it was a morning well-spent.

Pursuing walleye gold has been a mainstay of our summer. This week, crappie and king salmon have brought a splash of silver to our last week of freedom.

Heading into fall, smallmouth bass will pack on the pounds in preparation for winter, giving us an opportunity to chase some bronze before ice-up.

Bret Baker is a lifetime resident of Cloquet. He is a proud husband, father, educator and outdoorsman.