Fishing on Rowan Lake
Fishermen and women travel from all over the world to fish Rowan Lake. Imagine fishing for trophy Walleyes, Northern Pike, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Lake Trout and the World Class Muskie. Rowan Lake is renown as one of the top lakes in North America to produce the next world record Muskie.
Because of our Lodge’s central Island location, our guests can easily navigate to fishing spots throughout the lake. Every new group arriving to Alexander’s on Rowan Lake will be provided a detailed map of Rowan Lake that highlights the most active fishing locations and other pertinent fishing information. Pat and Cheryl Alexander will personally go over the map and discuss the best fishing locations, shore lunch spots and options for your stay at our lodge. We will also go over all the amenities of the main Lodge, your cabin and how to operate all your boating equipment so that your fishing and stay here at Alexander’s on Rowan Lake will be comfortable and hassle free.
Full-day guiding services are available to show you around to the many “hot fishing spots” on the lake or to help you get familiar with the area so you can explore Rowan Lake out on your own. Novice fisherman will have no problem catching enough Lake Trout or Walleye for a delicious and memorable shore lunch. If you choose to use our guiding services, our guides will spend a full day out on the water with you, prepare your shore lunch, and they will clean, package and freeze any fish you wish to transport with you back home.
Rowan Lake is a large, diverse body of water. It features shallow weedy bays, rocky reefs and expansive gin clear deep water basins. The deep water basins in Brooks Bay, Sullivan Bay and Eagles Nest and their adjoining bays are a combination of all types of Canadian Shield lake structure. Rowan Lake is large comprizing 60,000 acres in size and is 17 miles long and 7 miles wide and has a maximum depth is 180 feet. With Alexander’s Lodge central lake location on Rowan Lake, you will have no problem finding fishable waters without ever seeing another boat the whole day on the water. Rowan also doesn’t have any expansive open water areas that get exposed to the wind. Even in strong windy conditions it is relatively easy to find plenty of protected calm waters to fish.
World Class Trophy Muskie
Each year Rowan Lake produces outstanding numbers of Muskies in the mid 40’s to low 50’s inch range, with several that approach the Ontario 54″ minimum size as well. The muskies in Rowan are extremely thick and heavy. Our Muskies have a great high protein and fat rich diet of Lake Whitefish and Lake Trout. We see a lot of clear pattern fish come out of the Brooks Bay and eastern areas of the lake and more barred pattern fish on the west end of the lake. From our central island Lodge location at Alexander’s on Rowan, you can begin fishing muskies for them right from our docks. Traditional muskie gear works well on Rowan Lake. We have our best luck while casting bucktails in the weedy cabbage bays during most of the year with surface baits, jerkbaits and crankbaits on the reefs coming into play in late summer and early fall. Dark and natural color patterns work best on overcast days and bright color patterns work best on clear skies and bright sun. The weather doesn’t need to be miserable to catch a trophy fish as we see many of our BIG fish being caught a calm bright-sun blue-sky type days.
Lake Trout
Rowan lake provides exceptional Lake Trout fishing and the spring time is the one chance you have to hook up with fish without using downriggers or sophisticated equipment. Early in the year after ice out, lakers can be found high in the water column throughout the lake, allowing anglers to slowly troll their baits for superb action. Minnowbaits and spoons are the two top choices for catching these fish, but they must be trolled with a considerable amount of line behind the boat. River2Sea baits, Sutton and William spoons in silver and bronze color patterns work extremely well. Since the fish are high in the water column, they can also be spooky, so a quiet approach with long leads will help to trick these wonderful fish. White and silver are sure bets to fool lake trout, as they will match precisely the baitfish that the fish will be feeding on.
“Down deep” is the summer phrase for lake trout anglers, as the fish head deep to the bottom in search of cooler temperatures and baitfish. Now is the time to dig out the downriggers and troll the depths for success. Keeping your bait as close to bottom will often be the key, as will working areas of different depths and structure make-up to find out where the fish are hiding. Lake trout will often show up on fishfinders as large marking directly on or near the bottom. Putting a big spoon or crankbait as close as possible to these fish will trigger them to hit.
Fall is a movement time for lake trout and they will begin to suspend more readily and occasionally move higher up in the water column. Downrigging will still be your best best option, however, dragging lures at different depths will be the key to finding fish. Run a bait shallow, mid-depth and deep and see which one connects with fish. Paying attention to this “magic depth” will help you to limit out when others might not. The deep basins of Eagles Nest, Sullivan Bay, Miners Bay and Brooks Bay hold large populations and are noteworthy spots you need to fish Lakers on Rowan.
Walleye
The shallow bays in Rowan and the numerous nearby portage lakes provide excellent walleye fishing opportunities. In the early season we generally fish shallow reefs and points. Both live bait rigs and artificial baits work well for walleye that include jigs, Lindy rigs, spinners tipped with a minnow, leeches and Gulp minnows. Artificial’s that also produce are shad raps, small Mepps spinners and a variety of shallow running crank baits.
Northern Pike
Northern Pike on Rowan Lake are everywhere. They will attack every lure you can cast into the lake and you will catch them while fishing for all the other species. Most fish run 24 – 30 inches with many each season over 36 inches and some that reach the 20+ lb range as well. Our biggest sized pike come from the deeper water while using vertical, live bait presentations. Those who target a trophy however generally cast weedy shallow bays with artificials. This pattern also produces the most action from pike of all sizes. Muskie fisherman will often catch 20 – 40 pike a day which is common.
Smallmouth Bass
The fact that Rowan Lake has spectacular Smallmouth Bass fishing surprises many of our guests. These hard fighters can be caught on small spinner baits, jigs and minnows, tube jigs and small crankbaits during the early season. The best fishing occurs in late summer early fall when they come up onto shallow rock piles and reefs. Live bait presentations seem to work best at this time of year. Fishing boulder piles and combination rock and weedy areas works well for these bronzebacks. Smallmouth during the mid summer are a bit more difficult to catch. Casting crankbaits such as Husky Jerks and X-Raps to rocky points and boulder reefs and along the rocky shorelines seems to works best.
Largemouth Bass
In the spring of the year, look for Largemouth Bass in shallow, weedy back bays that the Bass use to spawn in. Post spawn Bass will tend to hang out in these areas until water temperature drives them into deeper water. Spinner Baits, Buzz Baits, floating worms and texas rigged worms will tend to be hot producers in this time of year. In the morning, fish close to shore for heavy feeding fish, and move towards cover as the day becomes brighter and water warms up. It is not uncommon for our muskie fisherman to catch numerous Largemouth Bass each day throwing bucktails, large spinner baits and topwater lures.
In the summer, Largemouth seek out shade, and you want to fish around blow down trees, cabbage weed beds, lily pads, and overhanging rock walls. Generally you want to flip lures into these areas, and worms and crawdad patterns work especially well. Also, working topwater lures early and late in the day is especially productive and fun! Hold on, because you’ll catch plenty of Northern Pike too and you have a great opportunity for a trophy Muskie.
As the fall arrives, fish will move towards deeper water and slow down until they semi hibernate in winter. Using slow moving crankbaits or jigs are good bets, and a jig and minnow can work when other means are slow.
Please contact us if you have any further questions about the fishing in Rowan Lake.
