Fishing for lake trout without down riggers? Anyone do that?

Lake trout are pretty boat shy and most lake trout water is crystal clear. Flashy spoons with lots of line out or a planer board to get the lures away from the boat.
North Shore of Lake Superior look for gravel and rocky bottom—10 to 15 ft deep —troll slow around 1 1/2 to 2 mph. Look for water temps on surface of 47 to 51 degrees. 2/5 oz Little Cleo’s blu and silver or brass and red.
I catch a lot of Specks casting but only a few lakers gotta troll for them.

3 Way bottom bouncing. 28 pounder in 14’ of water,
21 pounder in 35 feet. Lake Ontario...

White 4” plastics or 4 to 5” shiners for bait.

I have taken lakers in bays casting fairly often, but the water temp needs to be close to 51 degrees, and having just risen there. I have also taken them in bug slicks and 51 degree water a couple hundred feet deep by trolling Rapalas or KKahmann's little cleos both off planers and in the prop wash. Smaller lakers though, none of them over 10 lbs. The biggest casting in shallow bays were 15 lbs or so, most were 3-6 lbs. If you have them in shallow bays in the spring my experience it they they are in there feeding and eagerly hit spoons and Raps. Most of my experience with them has been in situations where there really weren't any big ones available.

I do an annual fly fishing trip for them and Rick Bin has been coming for a while now on them. I have about 50 years of fishing the same place. No really big ones where we fly fish it, but when they are practically on the surface, who cares? Used to fish cut bait along the edge of the ice in the spring and have caught some serious fish that way. Usually get to watch them cruising by and picking up the bait.

Lake outlets when the salmon smolt are trying to leave the lake headed to salt is good shallow water fishing in the spring.

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Planer board 15ft deep

Planer board again

Yes, just off the bottom. Lake Superior, a bay and then out into the lake a bit. Chunk of sucker on whatever you are dragging seems to be the ticket.

We bob a bit--but the same thing, fishing on the bottom

Older friends used lead lines to get down w/o riggers and my neighbor at our camp still does. A workout...:)

Fish late and into the night as the trout are far less wary in the shallows then and bait fish are in shallow
to escape birds in the darkness.

In Art & Rick Bin's fishing hole you can catch trout, after dark, in 2 feet of water and around your feet.

Fishermen Friends.....please don't kill those big trout.....let those old girls spawn.

A study in a local Alaska Lake indicates that it takes 8 years for a LT to reach 24 inches and another 8 years to reach 25 inches.
That's where sexual maturity kicked in and affected growth rate. So eat those little ones and get measurements and pics for
a fiberglass mount.

Here in Alaska, F&G figures on average, a lake trout grows 1/2" a year......hell I've caught trout older than Art.

I don’t kill big lakers unless they are headed to the taxidermist—both fish above represent once in a lifetime event for the clients involved.
The 40lber above was gutted by the local biologist and the otolith bone was removed—fish aged out at 27.5 years old.

Saw a video a while back about fishing for lakers after ice out with large surface plugs in red/orange/yellow (?). Apparently they were doing well doing this.

A large number of my bigger lake trout have fallen to a bright red Flatfish dragged slowly along a shoreline in spring.

Yeah, but have you caught them older than you?



Saw a bumper sticker the other day I just have to get:

"Fingers are for Girls, Not Gills!"

We used to fish Paxson and Summit using this very method. If they are there it can be a fish on every cast, but I am sure you already knew that We used to float down a creek that we put sockeye fry into, all the way down to the ice. Anchored the canoe off to the ice and pitched jigs. Caught a lot of lakers doing that, most of them were puking up clouds of sockeye fry. They just laid there and waited for us to put the fry into the creek.

Fishing for lakers on Crosswinds in the spring is a blast. They sit right off the edge of deep water waiting for the smolts to migrate into the shallow water. Fly fishing for them was usually the go to, and I have hooked them in water that wasn't deep enough to cover their backs.

Art....I need one of those bumper stickers!

If I find them I will get you one...

Ive hooked up on 2 lakers. Both from shore, using a 6' ugly stick spooled with 15lb braid.
One got away and i landed the second.

The one that got away hit on a 1/2 or 5/8 oz rainbow trout colored kastmaster in about 4 feet of water

The one that didnt get away hit a green/silver 3/4 oz kastmaster, again, not in a whole hell of a lot of water

My old Ambassadeur 6500 loaded with 15 pound monel wire will get a trolled biggest Williams Whitefish or Len Tompson Five of Diamonds down to 30 feet. The biggest green or silver Flatfish will go down to fifty.

Replace all the treble hooks with one single, connect to a five foot mono leader, and go fishing. You can feel everything the lure is doing, every time it scratches the bottom, and strikes feel vicious. Try it. You will have a ball.

Vern, Tagish is eight feet low right now..

Ted

I pay attention when Yukoner talks lake trout.....and rifles!

Ted, I just got back from touring the lake with 21 HB canoe.......just sightseeing except for a dinner fish or two.
Yes, the water is really low......makes one pay attention when leaving 6 Mile river into the lake.

I'll be back over in late July.

Good to hear from you Ted!

Great! Give me a shout when you are on your way.

That will be about the right time to be jigging for lakers in 150-200 ft off Squaw Point.



I know you know where it is, but someone, someday, may be visiting Tagish, and want to give one of "our spots" a try.

Ted

Ted
I might have to make that drive...

Just let me know when you are coming, Art.

Went out last Thursday evening with two friends of mine. Caught seven nice lakers, five of which we put in the canoe in 45 minutes.

Pulled into a nice spot at 10:30 and cooked up a big shore lunch of the two smallest ones. Fried trout fillets, baked beans, fresh home made bread, all washed down with hot tea while we watched the sun set.

Got home around 2:30 am.

My apologies for the not-so-brief hijack, wabigoon.
Ted

"Nirvana" never needed so many words before!

Just returned from a trip near Sioux Lookout, Ontario. The lake had Pike and Lake Trout. Trolled deep diving Rapalas flatline directly behind the boat. Lure would dive to about 20 feet and we trolled in water from 60 to 90 feet deep. Marked fish at all depths below 15 feet, mostly deep and under bait fish schools. Anytime we marked a fish at 25 feet or less we would get a strike. I would cast behind the boat as far as I could then let out another 20 foot of line as I started the troll. Surface water temperature was 68 degrees at the start of the the week and climbed to 75 by the end of the week. Early morning and evening were best action and trout were in the 23" to 30" range. We also picked up Pike on these trolls including a fat 39" one.

Woody, I sit southeast about 45 miles from Sioux lookout right now.

Richard - about 80 miles northeast of you, we have caught them trolling heavy, silver-colored spoons behind a 2 or 3 ounce chain sinker on wire line.

Wabigoon, I grew up fishing Lac Seul out of Ear Falls back in the 60's. Hunted and fished all over NW Ontario from Terrace Bay west to Red Lake since then. Have friends in Dryden that just bought the cabin we fished from. I head back up in two weeks to fish outside Atikokan mostly for smallmouths and walleye. The lake we stay on there has lakers too but I have not spent time trying for them.

Can one fight them up in those warm surface temperatures and then release them back though the warm waters and have good survival rate?
I don't know, . . . That's why I am asking

LouisB,

In my case we were not catching any fish below about 30 feet. They were coming up in the water column chasing bait. As soon as we released them they swam quickly down and did not linger near the surface. We were using fairly heavy equipment so brought the fish in and released quickly. There is a problem if you are catching them deep, say 50 feet or more, and bring them to the surface too fast. Swim bladder expands and they are too buoyant to get back down deep.

There was an article in an old issue of "InFisherman" that dealt with this. If I get time, I will see if I can locate it.

I know a biologist who did several studies on survival rates of released fish. Lake Trout were caught on Sturgen lake and Savant Lake and Long Lake near Longlac. Fish brought up from as deep as 130 ft had good survival rates as long as they swim straight back down to the depths—several fish were caught numerous times.
Surviaval rates for walleye was terrible if caught in water warmer than 60 degrees F—has something to do with lactic acid build-up in muscle tissue—fish seemed fine when released but died pretty regular after a couple of days.

I guess I get around Ontario quite a bit, I have caught trout on both Sturgen and Long Lake. My buddy owned camps on each at different times. Long Lake also had some big Brookies. I'll post pictures if I can find them.

Long Lake
d

Looking good. The last lake trout I caught was at Flaming Gorge in UT/WY about 5 years ago We were fishing 60'-100' down for Kokanee Salmon. I caught 3-4 of them in the 5lb range, and one that was probably around 10-12 lb range. Mighty fine tasting. Put them in my sisters traeger with some apple wood. We caught 6-8 Kokanee too. They were fantastic.

Brookies are my favorite though. Never caught one more than about 3 lbs.

Woody, I fished what they called Long Lake falls way back, same lake. East of Dryden a ways?

Eight hours East of Dryden, 40 miles North on the pulp haul road out of Terrace Bay. Lake has some interesting history with the timber industry and has many of what we called boomer logs drifted up against the bank. Large logs chained together at the ends to form a corral holding pulp logs for towing down the lake. Lake use to flow North but in the late fifties they cut a couple channels on the South end to increase the flow of the river going to Lake Superior so the hydro plant output could support the town and pulp mill.

That would be different Long Lake.

Happy Birthday Ted !

Thanks Kurt.

330 Million people are celebrating today!

Ted

Happy Birthday Ted.

Hey, Mel, how are you doing? Keeping that 9.3X62 warmed up every once in a while, I hope.

God bless,
Ted

Doing fine Ted. Glad to see you posting. And many God bless you also. --- Mel