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Lower Shore: Duluth to Two Harbors
Surface water temps warmed into the 60’s and Lake Trout fishing was good this week. Anglers had the best luck running their lines 80-120 feet down with brightly colored spoons. The average size was around 17 inches, but several reports of 27+ inch fish were received as well. Coho Salmon up to 23 inches were caught out of McQuade in decent numbers. There were quite a few nice Chinooks landed all over the shoreline this week. The only consistent factor seemed to be they were caught 100-120 feet down. Anglers that fished at the end of the day report doing better than those fishing early in the morning. A few seasoned anglers recommended heading north if you’re fishing early. One lucky angler caught and released a large Lake Sturgeon five miles north of Two Harbors this week! Although he was disappointed it was not the massive Chinook Salmon of his dreams it was still an amazingly rare catch for that area.
Upper Shore: Twin Points to Hovland
Surface water temps were 60-62 °F this week from all stations. Anglers reported good fishing for Lake Trout from all stations running spoons and flasher fly combos in deeper water from 60-120 feet down and suspending lures where fish were marked on their electronics. Lake Trout averaged 20-30 inches and 3-8 pounds. A few anglers reported good luck jigging over deep water structure from Grand Marais and Silver Bay but most anglers did best with traditional trolling. Very few reports of Chinook Salmon and no reports of Coho Salmon were received this week. The numbers of Pink Salmon caught dropped off drastically as well. Angler pressure was light to moderate from all stations.
Management Update
We are seeing some pretty incredible times right now on Lake Superior with the Cisco boom feeding all the predators out there and non-native salmonids (Chinook, Coho, Steelhead, Brown Trout, Splake) are getting to unbelievable sizes for Lake Superior, but Cisco booms like this only come around once every 40 years or so. What happens in a “normal” year or in a year with really low prey fish abundance? A lake-wide predator diet study was recently conducted with State, Tribal, and Federal partner agencies of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s Lake Superior Technical Committee and for Minnesota North Shore Chinook Salmon, low prey fish years lead to consumption of whatever food source is available which in the case of 2021 was terrestrial insects. Compared to other Great Lakes that have Alewife populations almost exclusively feeding Chinooks, you can see why Lake Superior Chinooks are typically smaller and much less abundant. For more details on this study, check out Ariel Edward’s thesis from Northern Michigan University. The Minnesota DNR has continued this project to capture diet habits during Cisco booms and to better understand just how long a boom like this will feed Lake Superior’s predators. This might help to better understand what happens in years where Cisco pull off a year-class but it’s really small compared to what we are seeing in 2024.
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Helpful Links
 Questions?
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Email us at Lake Superior fishing report
Give us a call at 218-302-3277
Fishing report hotline at 218-302-3293
Report suspicious activity at 800-652-9093
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