If you would like to learn how to catch these fish, you should read my updated article on How to Catch Pink Salmon on the North Shore.

The very first time I heard about pink salmon was last October during the first Gitche Gumee Trout Unlimited meeting of the year. More specifically, I heard that the north shore rivers were full of pink salmon! After a year of feeling like I’d missed an opportunity, I was determined to catch this bucket list fish.

Without much information to go on other than the location (north shore of Lake Superior) and timing (September), I took an entire weekend to drive up shore from Duluth towards Grand Marais in search of my first pink.

My trip started with a very early morning drive up the shore. Early enough to get a few casts from shore into Lake Superior in search of lake trout and rainbow trout. I spent a beautiful morning casting Lil’ Cleos into the water while the sun rose behind the clouds. I was able to catch a nice Kamloops rainbow trout.

After losing a couple of spoons and breaking my brand new Gander Mountain steelhead rod, I was forced to change tactics and species.

I grabbed my 5wt and loaded my pack with nymphs, egg patterns, San Juan worms, and streamers, then started hiking to find new water. I fished a few spots on my way and hooked a few small rainbows and medium sized brook trout, but still no pinks.

Then, after a few hours of picking pool after pool apart I walked up to a pool and there they were. Dozens of them.

I spent an hour changing flies trying to get a fish to bite. I eventually hooked into my first pink using a small size 16 copper john style nymph. For their size, pink salmon put up a great fight, often jumping out of the water like mini steelhead. I spent a little while longer and hooked into a few more, but eventually, after sneaking closer and closer, I decided to try filming them. I left my rod on shore and waded out with my action camera to capture some fantastic footage.

I fished a handful of rivers and ended up finding and catching pinks in each of them. One of my best patterns for pinks ended up being a wooly bugger streamer. I tied my own in pink/black, pink/white, and black/red that all caught fish.

Late September Update

After a week of rain and taking a break from the water to sit in my tree stand, I made my way back to the river. It took a little while to find the fish, but once I found them, I was catching them one after another. The hens were dropping eggs like crazy so after catching my first fish on a streamer I changed to a small orange egg pattern that matched the eggs.