Boundary Waters/Quetico Trip for 2001

June 8th-17th, 2001
Day 6:Wednesday, June 13th, 2001Cache Bay


After storming all night, we decided to get up and have breakfast, and head to Cache Bay.  We would decide again to have another morning of crappy gourmet oatmeal.  Never, never, never, ever again will I take this garbage into the BWCA or Quetico on a trip.  The stuff you get out of a package that is already mixed with fruit, cinnamon, maple, etc is much better than the gourmet stuff we took this year.

It was about 7:00am, and it was still raining a little.  We were determined to set out to Cache Bay, find the pictographs, and fish some unknown and virgin water.  We decided that this would also be an MRE day for lunch.  A day trip to Cache Bay would probably take all day, and we would not be back to camp before dark.

Even though we were still in the middle of a storm front, the wind was not blowing too badly, and we actually were able to navigate Cache Bay without any problem.  We started fishing the far southeastern shoreline, looking for shallow bays that may hold smallmouth bass.  We fished this method for nearly 1 hour with only a few northern, and no smallmouth bass.  We determined that the smallies would be in shallower water.  

Since the weather was not that bad, and we thought it would clear off, we didn't bring much in layering of clothing.  Well, the weather pretty much stayed rainy for most the morning, and GadgetMan was getting pretty dang cold.  I had insulated raingear, so I was not too bad, but we were definitely getting cold.

We made it back to where the pictographs were supposed to be located.  I remember Jason; the Quetico Park Ranger telling us the pictographs would be about 45 degrees up the wall as we rounded the corner.  Well, we never did find the pictographs.  By this time, GadgetMan was nearly frozen, and was having a hard time of it. (Not hypothermia bad, but pretty bad).  We were still fishing the shallower areas of this little arm of Cache Bay, not catching any smallmouth, and occasionally catching a northern.  This was beginning to suck.  We were cold, hungry, and not catching fish.  This was not what we had expected.  GadgetMan decided to pop his MRE and eat lunch.  It was only 10:30am, but the hot food would be just what he needed to start his motor running.  

After eating lunch, GadgetMan felt much better and started fishing.  By this time, it was raining really hard, the hardest it had rained on us in a long time in the Boundary Waters.  Near the far end of this little finger off of Cache Bay, we found an area that looked great for smallmouth bass.  The area had weed, wood, and rock.  Great for smallmouth bass to spawn, and also great for them to hold tight to cover in a rainstorm.  Perfect for fishing.  We loaded up our weapons.  In this case, both magic bait number 1 and magic bait number 2 would be used to catch fish over the next few hours.  We would also use a small 1/8 oz white Stanley MicroSpin.  This bait would also prove to be invaluable when trying to find the fish.

As I stated earlier, this cove had everything necessary for good fish.  It was shallow, had good wood cover, had weeds, and had good rock.  A few casts around the islands provided some great smallie action.  We continued around the other islands, catching 10 or 15 smallmouth.  After fishing the islands really hard, we moved to the bank as far in this finger of Cache Bay as you can paddle.  Here, I caught a 4.2lb smallmouth. A couple minutes later, I would catch another large smallmouth.  Within yet a few more minutes, GadgetMan would also catch a 4.3lb smallmouth.  Over the next hour, we caught nearly 30 smallmouth.  Many of these fish would be over 2lbs.  We also caught 5 or 6 that would surpass the 3lbs mark, and as stated before, 2 that would surpass the 4lbs.  We had found the fish, and new this would be a banner day.  

Due to the magical nature of this particular fishing spot..is has been since named..The G-Spot.  No jokes please.  This can be because of GeoFisher or GadgetMan finding the area, but nonetheless.it was a magical fishing area.

 After fishing the G-Spot for a little while longer, it was decided that there were many more areas to try.  One particular area would turn out to be the best fishing area I have personally ever found within the Boundary Waters.  For this reason, I will not tell exactly where it is.  I will say it was a pretty decent paddle from the G-Spot, taking much longer than we had expected to reach.  Also, looking at this spot, you would probably never fish it.  It does not look like too many fish could be caught there.  At least to the untrained, non robo-fishing eye, that is.  Funny thing, GadgetMan and I nearly passed this spot up because we didn't see the good areas until we were pretty well into the cove.  

Once we rounded the corner, we immediately recognized this spot as what it was a magic spot.  Thus the name X-Spot.

Once we started fishing the X-Spot, we were nearly floored.  Every fish absolutely hammered the bait.  We caught huge smallies, and monster northern.  Practically every cast ended with a decent fish being caught. 

One really good spot in this cove really produced some decent fish.  This area was a long sloping point, with trees, weeds, and rock.  On this particular point, there was a large tree lying in the water.   From this tree, on 3 consecutive casts, GadgetMan and I managed to land 3 smallmouth that would total over 10lbs.  The fish would weigh 4.3lb, 3.1lb, and 3.5lb.  As stated earlier, this area produced some really large fish.  Up to this point, we had caught over 50 fish, and it was only 2:00PM. 

Could it get any better than this?  After fishing completely around the cove, we decided to fish it again.  After all, at this rate, we could have a 100 fish day.  But we would have to hurry, the fish were slowing down, and the weather was turning for the worse....the  sun was trying to peek out from behind the clouds.  

We started round two with not too much success.  At this time, I decided to switch to yet another magic bait.  This bait is not as good as magic bait number 1, but nonetheless, will produce when called upon.  This bait was the ticket.  The first pass around the cove produced the actively feeding fish.  On this second pass around the lake, we began to catch fish that were shell-shocked from the storms the night before.  All these fish were tight to cover.  If you threw the bait right next to cover, into the trees, the fish would hammer it.  If the cast was off by more than 12 inches, forget it.  These fish were spooked, and the only way to catch them, was to tempt them with something they cannot resist.  This is exactly what magic bait number 2 is designed to do.

We managed to catch 112 fish on that day.  By the time we had reached 100 fish, we could hardly move.  Both of us had fished hard, but had not ever caught as many large fish as we had on that day.  We managed to catch nearly 20 fish over 3lbs, at least 30 over 2lbs, and 3 over 4lbs.  All of these fish were smallmouth bass.

It was 6:00PM by now, and we both decided to stop fishing and start paddling.  We figured it would take us nearly 2-3 hours to get back to camp, and we were in no condition to be paddling.  It would in fact take us 3 hours to reach camp.  We decided to eat another quick meal of tuna fish and call it a day.  This would also be another first.  We went to bed for once in the Boundary Waters with the sun still shining.

Tomorrow would yet be another hard day.  We were planning another long day trip.   This time, we would be traveling to Ottertrack and Jasper on a daytrip.  This would be nearly 14 miles round trip for us.  

Total Numbers to this date:  293 smallmouth Bass.

This page was last updated on: December 23, 2022