Lakers

[slime rocket]

Hey everybody! I was wondering the best way to fish for lake trout. We are driving north up to Nikina for our annual Canadian Fly-in fishing trip from Minnesota in about a week. Uncles and cousins from Oregon and Colorado all met up with family in Minnesota to do this every year. We try for lakers but only my brother has caught one. Any advice as far as tackle and tactics go would be great. Most of the time we are so caught up in Walleye and slime rockets that we neglect the lakers. I guess its more fun when your catching fish!

[evster]

I've caught most of mine trolling real slow with spoons. My favourite is a silver and yellow mepps cyclops. My cousins fish northern ontario and they have most their success trolling with flashers and minnows. I think the key is figuring out what depth they are at. About a month ago they were no deeper than 20 feet in the lake I was fishing so they were easy to get to, in the summer they go to the bottom of that lake and don't bite as much, so we then tend to focus on bass and pike.

[mikemo]

I love the little cleos myself with a blue colour combo.

This site has some interesting tips if you're not going to be down-rigging.

laketrout.org

[slime rocket]

Awesome tips you guys. Thanks for the trout site it is just what I was looking for.

[tschirk]

1) Timing is everything when they are feeding, not much you can do about that...

2) Next find their preferred temp this will give you the best depth, usualy 49-51deg F

3) take your favorite spoon, I like a large Lucky Strike Canoe, pearl colour with one large red dot

3a) remove the hook (leaving split ring attached to spoon) and replace with a snap swivel

3b) Using a 3-4" minnow make a small length wise incision in it's throat and feed the buisness end of the snap swivel through it's mouth, down it's throat and out the incision.

3c) attach a ultra sharp (e.g. Gamagatsu) treble hook to the now exposed busienss end of the snap swivel, this gives the best action on the minnow/spoon combo

4) I like to use 30lbs no stretch line like Fireline or PowerPro with a 4-6ft, 20lbs Seagar florocarbon leader with a 9ft rod like a Shimano TDR.

5) I use down riggers for getting to the right depth but dipsey divers with a shock cord are a good alternative. You could use inline weights or lead core line. Old timers prefer steel line.

6) check lure a action beside boat, speed should be ~ 1.5mph

 

Good Luck

Edited June 17, 2007 by Ted & the Gadget