Isle Royale Forums

Hey all,

I've been passionately planning my next visit to the Isle. This will be my third trip to the island and I'd really like to do some fishing while on the island this time. I'm a pretty avid fisherman and have been doing some research on here and on the greenstone.

It appears that most people target Northerns and Walleye's. I've fished for them before but also enjoy it, but also fish many times for blue gills, crappie and bass. I was wondering if many of the inland lakes have panfish in them. The larger game fish need something to feed on, if panfish are not in the lakes what is the primary diet of the pike and walleye (would it just be shinner and suckers)?

Thanks for any feed back. FYI, I'm almost certainly going to be fishing Chickenbone and Lake Ritchie but am debating two different trips, one with more hiking out of Rock Harbor looping back mainly hiking and fishing, and one longer trip going from McCargoe to Chippewa with either a Canoe or Kayak. The second trip will likely be a longer trip (and one I'm looking forward to much more) but I'm not sure if I'll be able to swing that second trip this year.

Thanks for any feedback.

I have heard of folks catching perch out of some of the inland lakes (Ritchie, Chickenbone, Wood, Whittlesey). Don't recall anyone catching either bluegill or crappie. I am kind of surprised you don't hear of someone catching a smallmouth in Moskey or McCargoe.

There's a spreadsheet of "Fish List in Inland Lakes" on the NPS website here http://www.nps.gov/isro/planyourvisit/brochures.htm. Just click the link to download it. I wouldn't consider it definitive, but pretty accurate. Looks like only Richie and McDonald (not sure where that is) have Sunnies. Perch must be popular for pike supper .

McDonald Lake is about 1.5 miles west of the end of McCargoe Cove.

Thanks for the tips guys. I reviewed that spread sheet and it is a good helpful tool. I'm sure that the pike would easily feast on young perch. Sounds like I'll need to bring some fire tiger colored lures. Explains why some have good sucess with a 5 of diamonds pattern as
I'm sure the yellow imitates the yellow belly of the perch. I'm debating bringing some black Marabou flies and Jigs to imitate the many leeches on some of the inland lakes.

At times I have seen thousands of Suckers running in streams leading from inland lakes into Lake Superior.

Does anyone have the list of fish species per inland lake? The NPS link above is broken and I could not find a replacement on their site. I searched the forums but could only find other posts with the broken link.

"Fishable Lakes Chart" link ---> viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3579&p=25910&hilit= ... kes#p24171

Thank you! I also just noticed it is a "sticky" post in this forum. Surprising it didn't come up in my searches.