Limit O' Lake Trout

My Dad and I got up at 4 in the morning with high hopes for the day. We had picked out the spot that we wanted to fish after looking at the Navionics WebApp the day before and needed to get there as soon as possible to be able to stake our claim. With a one hour plus drive between us and our destination, time was of the essence. When we pulled into the parking area at 5:30, it was already packed with trucks and cars. Working fast to load up the sleds, it wasn’t long before we were on the ice. It was cool to see all the lanterns and headlamps lighting up the morning fog all across the lake. The air was very “dense” and it seemed eerily quiet, with only muffled voices and augers echoing through the night sky. As we approached the spot that we had selected, we realized that someone was set up right on top of it already. We then looked towards our backup location, but saw headlamps over there as well. After standing around for a minute or two, contemplating what our next move should be, we decided to just find the nearest opening between groups and set up camp. After having a chat with the guy closest to us, to make sure that he wasn’t planning to run traps anywhere near our spot, my Dad started the auger and began popping holes. I followed with the fish finder, to get a sense of the topography of the lake.

While we were setting up our tip-ups, another guy pulled up next to us and began fishing with the man who we had spoken to earlier. After watching them jig up two lakers within ten minutes, I decided to break out my jigging stick to get on this crazy early morning laker bite. After jigging for a half hour, with only one looker, I heard a voice come from over my shoulder. “Is that Shaun and Perch Bait over there?” It was JMailbox8, who was fishing with FishHardwater2. I walked over to introduce myself and ended up learning a thing or two about their secret jigging techniques. FishHardwater2 even gave me one of his secret weapons, Thanks again Jay! I immediately put that lure on, and dropped it down the hole. Within seconds of hitting the bottom I was hooked up. Next thing you know, I flicked the 16 incher onto the ice. It was a good start to the day.

Once the majority of our tip-ups were set up, we got the first flag of the day, in shallow. I ran to it only to find a couple feet of line taken off of the spool and the bait dropped. We set it back up and returned to jigging. A couple minutes later, the same trap was tripped again. This time the spool was turning slowly upon arrival. I carefully removed it from the hole and gave the line a tug. Fish on. Almost immediately, I saw a little laker go zipping by the hole again and again, until he suddenly popped up into the hole. It was another short, ~15 inches long. Not long after that, my Dad caught a little bit better fish out of that same hot hole. This fish had a deceiving amount of fight in it. We thought that he had on a monster rainbow, due to it’s long line stripping runs. He probably fought it for about three minutes before the fish was finally getting close. There’s the swivel, there’s the fish. It took three hands to get the feisty lake trout onto the ice. It was another 16 or 17 incher.

The next flag was from a different tip-up, out in 45 FOW. The flag had probably been up for thirty seconds before I noticed it and began running. Once I got there, I noticed that something was wrong. There was no line left on the spool! I yanked the trap out of the hole and gave the line a snap, but the fish was gone. I couldn’t believe it. Must’ve been a screamer trout to be able to spool us that quickly. After catching one or two more lakers, all small, we had a flag on a tip-up in close to shore. Another hit and run. Moments after resetting the tip-up, the flag popped again. This time, I could see the T-trigger spinning at a rapid rate as I closed in on the hole. I pulled some slack off of the spool, grasped the line and sunk the hook into a “log.” The fish wasn’t fighting very hard at first, just kind of dead weight at the end of my line, but that changed once it got near the hole. As soon as I could just barely get the swivel up the hole and start to see the leader, she would take off. After 6 or 7 runs, I was eventually able to catch a glimpse of the biggest laker of the day. The line would make a sort of whipping noise as it slid through my wet fingers. I certainly was in no rush to get the fish in, as I didn’t like how my 6 pound leader kept cutting into the edge of the hole. That’s the problem with fishing in shallower water. The fish has nowhere to run except straight away. The fish began to tire and my Dad was able to slip his hand under her gill plate once I got it turned up the hole. We had done it, we had caught a keeper laker at around 23-24 inches long.

The bite ended up almost completely shutting off in the afternoon, with only an “At-The-Hole” hit while checking to see if we still had any bait after a flag. They just seemed to stop eating for some reason. We would have plenty of lookers while jigging and lots of flags, but nothing that resulted in a fish. The only excitement that we had was when Justin caught his massive 39.5 inch Laker on a jig stick. That definitely spiced things up a little bit! As the fog thickened, we began to lose sight of the opposite shore and darkness seemed to creep up on us fairly quickly. I was jigging in the hole where I caught the first fish of the day, when a flag right next to me went off. I ran over and ended up bringing in a 20 incher. Justin came running over with his yardstick to make sure that... Yup, it was legal. It took all day, but I had finally caught my limit of Lakers.

The tally for the day ended up being 9 lake trout, 2 of which were keepers, a tangled mess of old braided line, which I almost lost my lucky jig to, and a bucket load of fun. It was a GREAT day on the ice!