So I finally had my first experience on the TFF. Overall, the fishing was difficult for us but a great time was had by all nonetheless. We went out on Friday and camped at F15 for the next two nights. The site had a nice wrap-around view of the water, an easy soft landing area (just big enough for our two boats) and plenty of room to pitch our four tents.

Friday was a beautiful, mostly-sunny day in the 70's. We focused on the area from our campsite down the shoreline into Blair Lake. An hour or two into fishing, we'd landed a respectable smallmouth, a 15 inch walleye and a few small pike. It looked like the fishing was going to be solid. But it REALLY slowed down after that. I personally went the entire day without a bite.

Saturday was the rain and cool weather. We stayed off the water until the storm cleared and fished hard from early afternoon to evening. We ventured out to a set of islands south of R16. It was the best looking bass fishing spot of the trip - LOTS of rocky shoreline and rock bars surrounded by water. Almost looked like Canada. We fished this area hard for a few hours and only managed a rock bass (my first fish of the trip - hooray!) and a dink smallmouth. We went out around sunset and fished near Fisherman's landing and only managed a rock bass and a smallmouth.

Sunday was beautiful, and we had until early afternoon to fish before having to break camp and leave. Our fishing focused on the area from F15 and proceeded in the direction of Murray's Landing. We had a brief flurry of activity in the morning boating five fish in about a half hour (pike and bass), but it slowed down after that.

All in all, we landed 20 fish between five guys over three days. I believe this was a combination of the cold front, not knowing the TFF (our first time), and maybe being a few days late on the furious smallmouth bed action. I was very impressed with the beauty of the flowage and could not believe the amount of spots that looked like great fishing areas. Rock reefs, humps, weeds, downed trees, submerged boulders, stumps, flats - we attacked all of them. We threw Senkos, hula grubs, jig/twister, crankbaits, beetlespins, flukes. Crawlers were the only live bat we had and they were next to useless for us. I worked my jig and crawler down so many drop offs, pitched into weed edges etc, and I was amazed that I didn't even get rock bass or pecks from tiny fish. Maybe minnows were the ticket?


With how vast the TFF is, you are always curious as to what is around the next bend or corner, and of course the wildlife is abundant. I have no doubt the fishing can be great here, but it doesn't seem to me to have the idiot-proof easy fishing of a place like the Sylvania Wilderness, Boundary Waters or a Canada fly in lake. I think there's just enough fishing pressure, boating, and development to prevent a maximized fish population.


But while the fishing was slow, it was a great experience and I loved the whole "Boundary Waters meets state park car camping" vibe of the power boat camping. Great to have a steady supply of cold beer as opposed to a dirty flask of whiskey! Many more creature comforts can be packed into a boat than a canoe. Make no mistake, I will be back, but probably not every year. That said, I do wish I was still up there.