Poor man laker fishing?

[heri0n]

I was planning a couple day camping/fishing trip on the Civic long weekend 31-3. Probably around the Algonquin to Temagami area. I was wondering how hard it is to catch lakers without a boat with a motor and down riggers? Is it possible to fish from a canoe, and just paddle hard and use some cheap equipment?? Lol... Is it even worth trying?

Thanks!

[Roy]

I think that at that time of the year especially, with a canoe your best bet would be to jig......white tubes for example. It would be good if you had sonar though.

[Guest ThisPlaceSucks]

lakers are very catchable without 'riggers.

fish one of the inland laker lakes in the gonk.

find 50 fow and some structure. often in the canoe we use walleye bottom bouncers and a variety of rapalas. i like my tackle to have a little orange as well.

[heri0n]

cool thanks for the quick replies and information guys!

for jigging... or any of the other baits at all, do you have to move your bait at all to attract the fish?

what is a gonk?

would be really helpful if you could explain the techniques in detail, since i'm pretty newbie at fishing in general!

thanks again guys

[jayess]

I've found trout to be finicky with "boring movements". For trolling, this means the odd yank on your lure to entice a hit. For jigging, not sure... I haven't done much of it for lakers.

 

the gonk = alGONQuin park

 

 

one option instead of bottom bouncers is three-way swivels with a 1oz or 2oz weight.

 

http://www.laketrout.org/algonquin-trout-fishing-canoe.htm

 

has some info on how to rig this up. many success stories using this rig. takes a little effort to get used to it. as others pointed out, it would be good to have a sonar to figure out how deep you should be fishing.

[craigdritchie]

My friends and I did a couple of canoe trips through Quetico Provincial Park, and we caught all kinds of lake trout by vertically jigging over deep water. Big hair jigs or tubes work, but ice fishing lures are even better -- try big Williams Whitefish or Jigging Rapalas. Drop the lure to bottom, reel up a foot or so, and give it a good vertical sweep of about two feet, then drop the rod tip quickly so it free-falls. Lakers usually hit it on the drop, so keep an eye on your line and set the hook if you see a twitch, or if it starts heading off to one side.

 

A fishfinder definitely helps, just so you can be sure you're in deep enough water (50 feet or more). If you don't have one, look for spots where the shoreline drops steeply into the lake - what happens on shore usually continues underwater, so cliffs and bluffs can suggest good starting points for you.

[heri0n]

wow thanks for the info guys.. keep it coming!

 

how do you estimate how deep your line is in?

 

for jigging then do you just leave the jig in one spot and move it up and down basically?

 

i was reading the site jayess gave me, and it explains trolling in a canoe... do you know approximately how fast you would need to paddle?

[bare foot wader]

a poor man's way of downrigging is to use a three way swivel with a big bell sinker....I've had success doing this and trolling rapala's and spoons....a portable electronic unit would be very handy with trying to find lakers....

[jayess]

trolling speed: just like trolling anything, put the lure in the water just beside the boat, start moving. if you like the action you're getting on the lure, that's the speed to use :-). if you have a sensitive tip, you can see the "bobbing" of your spoon when trolling. as a short answer, you really don't have to go very fast at all. i also would suggest doing this at early morning or evening when the water is calm.

 

line depth: this is a bit tricky i find. if your lure/rig isn't very heavy, then it has a tendency to "plane out". for instance if you try dropping your lure right beside the boat on a lake with even SOME waves, you will find that you will be moving away from the location that your lure is dropping. the same idea goes when you're trolling -- the lure may have a tendency to be plane out rather than stay deep. solution is to keep a somewhat heavy rig if you want to troll at a significant depth. otherwise, expect to lose some depth as you move along. sorry if my explanation isn't clear.

 

for jigging: try just jigging beside the boat. understand what the jig is doing when it's dropping -- that's typically the movement that triggers a hit as the previous poster indicated. don't jig furiously though. i would imagine something like how you might fish a hula-popper or other surface lure: jig jig, wait a bit, jig, wait a bit, etc. just play around a bit.

[bare foot wader]

buy a clip on line counter.....and a secure rod holder for your canoe.....

[craigdritchie]

Jigging is great because it's so simple. Just drop the lure over the side and fish right under the canoe. Drift along in the breeze and try a few different spots till you connect. It's the perfect way to fish while you gobble down some lunch, because you can jig one-handed. It's a bit harder to juggle a sandwich, a can of pop, your rod and a canoe paddle all at once.

 

Have a look at your lure a couple of feet down in the water and see what happens when you lift it up then drop it on a slack line. It doesn't seem to mater how fast you lift a Williams Whitefish - the key is dropping it on a totally slack line. With the Jigging Rapala, the force you lift with has a big effect on how the lure behaves. Sometimes the fish want a faster motion, other times they want it slower and more subtle. You'll need to experiment to see how they respond on a given day.

 

We used to gauge water depth by counting how long it took the lure to sink to bottom. I have no idea how that ever translated into an actual depth, but if we caught fish in places where it took 20 seconds to reach bottom, we would fish other spots where it also took 20 seconds to reach bottom, and often caught fish there as well. If we went to a new spot and hit bottom in 12 seconds, we knew to move farther offshore into deeper water.

 

That said, the clip-on line counter is an excellent idea, for either jigging or trolling. These are cheap, and they work pretty well.

[heri0n]

cool thanks guys!

 

so are there any lakes you guys can recommend in algonquin or around the area?

we may or may not portage...

 

also are fish finders that necessary? I'm sure it would help tons... as I read that 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water... How much are they.. the cheap ones seem to cost about a 100$ are these any good? A little expensive for now..

Would depth maps be sufficient? You can pick these up at the camp office right?

[jayess]

check your PM, heri0n

[lovemyprovince]

I was planning a couple day camping/fishing trip on the Civic long weekend 31-3. Probably around the Algonquin to Temagami area. I was wondering how hard it is to catch lakers without a boat with a motor and down riggers? Is it possible to fish from a canoe, and just paddle hard and use some cheap equipment?? Lol... Is it even worth trying?

Thanks!

 

use dipsy divers or a big sinker or wolf rig.( look like a bottom boncer but with a 3 way swivel. use a small williams. you can catch them from shore in late fall or early sping. good luck