Fishing the Northwest Angle out of Sandy’s Blackhawk Island from Aug. 28-Sep. 3, we encountered typical late summer/early fall transition patterns. Muskies were everywhere, without a concentration of fish on any one spot. Sand, sand/rocks, weedy bays, rock points and shorelines, trees, and rock reefs all produced muskies. Weeds were getting pretty scuzzy in some locations, but one of our big fish was caught the final day from weeds. Bloom was bad in places.

Large, double-bladed spinners were hot, but a Mepps Double Musky Flashabou (which has double seven blades) fished second in the boat was important because it picked up muskies that didn’t want bigger blades. Figure-8s were hugely important, with nearly half our blade muskies being caught boatside with several that we did not see prior to the hit.

Slammers and Suicks were also effective and accounted for the three largest muskies of the week.

Curiously, while we thought muskies would have largely forgotten that lures “bite back” during a year and a half of no fishing from U.S. visitors, that wasn’t the case as we experienced many short hits and nippers, with the fish acting just as squirrely sometimes as we saw during our last visit in 2019.

— Steve Heiting, steveheiting.com, www.facebook.com/steveheitingoutdoors