Finding ciscoes can help you catch more giant walleye, lake trout, pike, bass and muskies this fall. Here’s how

HIT THE FALL SHALLOWS

Like all good things, the cisco-shooting gallery shuts down with the erosion and eventual elimination of the thermocline during fall turnover. Instead of cisco-based patterns petering out, however, they actually strengthen instead—so much so you almost have to feel sympathy for these baitfish. Their Achilles heel? They spawn in late fall on shallow gravel shorelines and shoals, often in natural or wind-induced current areas, such as constricted channels.

Knowing this, the biggest walleye, bass, muskies and pike, in particular, will wait at the prime intersections and maraud the arriving migrants. It’s often a bloodbath, occasionally revealed by floating cisco carcasses on the water’s surface. For this reason, I always look for fish-eating birds, especially bald eagles, squawking chaotically and diving onto the surface, or perched up high in nearby trees.

The key is locating the best rock structures—including sea gull rocks, whale backs, shallow boulder shoals and saddles—that lie in the path of the incoming cisco schools. I have one favourite tiny island point on Rainy Lake, for example, where so many huge predators group up and wait for dinner to arrive that you can’t predict what will hit your bait next. One cast it will be a gargantuan northern pike, the next a double-digit walleye and the third a plump smallmouth stuffed with so many ciscoes it spits them out as you bring it to the net.

On another lake, I have a similar spot where it’s deep on one side of a piece of structure and shallow on the other. The same multi-species fall brawl plays out there, too. One time, when my grandson Liam was young, we were duping chunky walleye by retrieving cisco-imitating paddletails. Liam hooked an obviously big fish, and I watched his rod double over dangerously as he yelled for me to grab the net. I took my time, thinking it was a large walleye. I barely had the net in my hand, however, when one of the biggest smallmouth bass I’ve ever seen erupted from the water right beside the boat, and cartwheeled four feet into the air. I swear it looked me straight in the eye as it twisted and turned—and spit the hook. Such is the drawing power of ciscoes.