Boundary Waters Day Trip: Walleye, Smallmouth and Pike Galore

On a long day trip into the Boundary Waters in Late July I had the best fishing day of my life. Wendell and I went in search of a few keeper walleyes for a fish fry and experienced the best trophy walleye fishing I've ever seen. I fished from sunup to sundown and ended the day with 33 fish. I caught 6 trophy smallmouth bass, all over 17", the largest going 19". I only caught 4 walleyes that day, keeping the smallest at 19". The three larger fish I released were 24", 26.5" and 28.5". The two larger fish are the largest walleyes I've ever caught, setting a new personal best. I started the day drifting with leeches and crawlers but was only able to put a few decent pike and small smallmouth bass in the boat. Once I gave up on trolling and drifting, I started to get into the trophy fish using a simple 1/8oz green jighead and a medium leech. All of the trophy fish were caught in 12-15 feet of water on a perfectly calm, bluebird sky day that got into the 80s...not your typical walleye weather. Most of the fish were caught casting towards the shoreline, where I assume there was a rocky transition to mud where they were feeding on the leech hatch. I was fortunate enough to catch all of these fish on camera. This is certainly a day I will never forget. #bwcafishing #walleyefishing #bwca