# MacGregor Bay Musky-North Channel



## Richard Gullixon (Jun 1, 2018)

I am headed up to musky fish MacGregor Bay in the North Channel in August. Does anyone have any experience in this area? I have a good map and have fished just east in the Bay of Islands (tremendous area), but I would like to spend some time learning a bit of MacGregor Bay. I would certainly be willing to share my experiences fishing Bay of Islands with someone who has some experience fishing muskies on MacGregor Bay. Thanks.


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

A million islands and shoals. Find choke points, watch the wind, and fish the choke points where the wind will set up a current. Really clear water, natural colored baits and black are the best. In the daytime Fish will suspend off the dropoffs at the depth where the shelf makes a deep drop into deeper water. Low light they will generally move up onto the shelves. Big saltwater jigs and large plastics have done very well for me there and over by the French River.


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## Richard Gullixon (Jun 1, 2018)

Thanks ESOX for your quick response. Great stuff! I've got a few more general questions and I hope you don't mind. How would you characterize the fishing or boating pressure? A couple of the spots that really jump out at me on the map look to also be thoroughfares for boats. 

How much casting verse trolling did you do? When I fished Bay of Islands, it really set up well for trolling as it was mostly vast open water well away from the mouth of the bay and the countless islands. 

Did the submerged humps or shoals in deeper water produce for you? 

Thanks again!


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

I like to cast at low light and on cloudy days and reserve trolling for calm sunny days when you need to get deeper and the fish locations arent as predictable. The best choke points are the windward ones with a nice hump between points or a point and an island. Shoals are great, especially in October, when the lake herring go up to spawn at night.......


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

Where are you staying?


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## Richard Gullixon (Jun 1, 2018)

I'm probably going to be camping. Still Water has camping. Do you have any recommendations?


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

No real suggestions there, we always had a mother ship we slept on (42' Carver) and ran around in 16-18' Crestliner big tiller camp boats. Just play the wind. Always try to get to where the wind is creating current. I was just going to shoot you some numbers of the better gaps if I knew better what water you would be working. I still have numbers on my old GPS from the days before they made mapping ones. LOL. Just get a chart and study it. Put Marine Ways on your phone too.


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## Richard Gullixon (Jun 1, 2018)

There are not a lot of options for places to stay right on MacGregor Bay, unfortunately. Your lodging setup sounded great. Last time I stayed in Little Current. Where did you rent the camp boats? My plan of attack is to fish north and east of Wardrobe Island. Looking at OMNR historical spawning and survey data, this area should be right in the thick of things...I hope. That's easily a couple square miles, but seems to be the best looking water where there is a lot of structure that really necks down with some current I'm sure like you said. I would love to explore a little further east to Jumbo and Harrison Islands because there are some awesome looking spots just west of the islands, but that's A LOT of water. I'm also going to call a fisheries guy or two from OMNR. I did that last time, but the guy really wasn't a musky guy and didn't really wasn't much help. That would be great if you could send me some gps numbers. That would give me a good starting point and would be incredibly generous of you. Thanks for all the great advice!


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