ELY—Stu Osthoff has been fishing canoe country for 50 years. He still goes out every summer, still guides 10-day wilderness trips, and still gets a little bothered when someone drifts a line while paddling.
“That’s not fishing,” he says. “That’s wishing.”
Osthoff, 69, is publisher and editor of the Boundary Waters Journal and runs what he calls his Grand Slam Guide Service, leading clients deep into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park in pursuit of four species: smallmouth bass, walleye, lake trout, and northern pike. Last Thursday, he shared his hard-won knowledge in a presentation for Friends of the Boundary Waters, and the advice was specific enough to fill a tackle box.
The overarching philosophy came through quickly. Penetrate the backcountry, fish hard, and stop fishing when you’re traveling. Osthoff paddles two full days into the wilderness before he even breaks out his rods. Once in position, his groups fish until dark, return to camp by headlamp, and eat late meals in a pop-up screenhouse he hauls in on portages. It is not a casual operation.
“Fishing dictates everything,” he said. “Who goes, when we go, where we go, what we use.”
Smallmouth: Hunt first, then fish
Osthoff calls smallmouth bass his favorite quarry because of how visual the pursuit is. He moves along shorelines in a canoe, scanning ahead for fish layered in rocks, near submerged logs, around weed edges, or at small stream inflows. He is looking for fish before he casts.
“I hunt them first, then I fish for them,” he said. “You want to spot that spot way ahead of you and fish it before the canoe pushes in and spooks the bass.”
During the spawn, male bass fan oval nests in the sandy or gravelly bottom that catch sunlight and glow like a halo. Big females hold nearby. Osthoff throws to the nest and the surrounding water alike.
Timing matters. Late May through mid-June is peak, with smaller lakes warming and spawning first. Osthoff milks the spawn across three consecutive trips, progressing from small lakes to medium to the massive border lakes like Basswood, LaCroix, and Crooked, which heat up last due to spring runoff.
His line choice for bass is braided, around eight to ten pound test, which casts farther than monofilament and transmits a hookset cleanly on long throws.
He always paddles clockwise around bass shorelines so right-handed anglers in the bow can cast to the left, their natural power side.
Walleye: Fish when the sun goes down
Walleye have a different tempo. For trophy fish, Osthoff targets mid-June through mid-July, and the single most important window is the hour before full dark.
“Seven p.m. till dark, dark,” he said. “Go back with your headlight on.”
For line, he switches to monofilament for walleye, around eight-pound test. Braided line transmits too much information when you want the lure to move naturally, and monofilament’s slight stretch works in your favor when fish are right under the canoe.
Wind is not the enemy. Osthoff specifically targets wind-struck shores and funnels where water is pushed through a narrows. Walleye bite poorly in calm, bright conditions and feed actively when the water is churned up.
He is disciplined about harvest. His groups take one all-you-can-eat walleye fry per trip, killing only fish in the 15-to-18-inch range. Nothing over 20 inches goes in the pan. Nothing over 20 inches in any species, really.
“There’s no excuse to ever kill a big fish intentionally,” he said. “They’re no good to eat anyway.”
Lake trout: Get to the bottom
For years Osthoff trolled for lake trout the traditional way, paddling miles with his rod tucked under his knee and losing fish every time he had to put down his paddle to set the hook. A few years ago, he converted entirely to a technique that changed everything for him.
The Klos Brothers’ trout lure is a one-ounce lipless crankbait. You don’t cast it. You drop it straight down until the line goes slack, which tells you it has hit bottom. Then you lift it three feet and let it fall back. The wind drifts the canoe, so while the lure is moving vertically with your rod, it’s also covering water horizontally as you move. The motion is slow and deliberate, not the aggressive pumping you might use for a walleye jig.
The key is depth and temperature. Lake trout prefer water around 50 degrees. By mid-June, that water is found at roughly 50 feet. Later in summer they drop to 60 to 80 feet, but the technique works at any depth. Find the bottom and lift.
Osthoff has never caught anything but lake trout on the Klos lure. He fishes it from around 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., though he catches fish earlier and later. Wind helps, calm hurts. For big water he goes to LaCroix and Argo Lake in the Quetico.
A 40-inch lake trout, he noted, may be 40 to 50 years old. Handle with a large net, unhook in the net, revive fully before release.
Northern pike: Incidental but
spectacular
Osthoff does not target northern pike. He catches them anyway, mostly while fishing for bass. When big pike show up, they tend to be on the same productive lakes he fishes for other species. He encourages anyone serious about big pike to bring a large net. He does not recommend steel leaders for bass fishing even though pike will bite off lures occasionally. The tradeoff in casting performance is not worth it.
The bigger picture
The canoe country grand slam is not a casual endeavor. Osthoff brings six food packs for eight people on a 10-day trip, hauls an eight-man screenhouse, and structures his entire season around being in the right place at the right time of year. He has a 90-percent catch rate on trophy walleye from one specific spot on one Quetico lake, and even there some nights produce nothing.
The point, he said, is not luck. It’s stacking the odds.
“A trophy fish is scarce. They’re a worthy goal. It’s such a thrill when you do catch one.”
More of Osthoff’s fishing knowledge, including a 15-page article on targeting trophy fish across all four species, is available through the Boundary Waters Journal at boundarwatersjournal.com.