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Does anyone have some tips for fishing Tofte Lake near Ely?? We went there this past weekend and didn't get anything, but saw other people catching some nice trout... Any tips??? This is a beautiful lake and look forward to fishing it again with some better luck

Thanks!!

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Tofte can be a tough lake but I personally like running downriggers with cowbells and worm harnesses down 15 to 25 feet. The bigger the blades on the cowbells the better. The cowbells seem to have a magical effect on the rainbows. If downriggers are not an option I would try cowbells with an ounce or 2 of weight in front of them to try to get deeper.

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Wouldn't a 16 or 20 oz snap weight be adequate with the cowbell rig in question? Mini Downrigger, so to speak.

Tunrevir~

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Any type of weight will work to get the cowbells down...in general. However, after 20 years of fishing Tofte Lake, I can attest to the effectiveness of cowbells & crawler harnesses pulled behind downriggers. Look for the fish on your electronics, dial in the depth on your downrigger, and get ready. The downrigger isn't so much a tool for getting deep (normally I fish 10-35 feet down) as it is a tool for "controlled depth fishing." With downriggers, you know exactly how deep your baits are running. I've found that on Tofte, a difference of 5 feet can be ALL the difference.

So, like Captjon said, at the very least get a set of cowbells and crawler harnesses...however you choose to get them to depth is up to you. I prefer downriggers.

Captjon and I fished together with a few buddies using the method described above. One weekend, we caught and released close to 400 rainbows and splake using this method! We went through an entire flat of crawlers! If you're not looking for record-setting numbers, you can catch your limit of rainbows in the early morning, then head over to an Ely area Lake Trout lake with much the same setup for your afternoon fishing.

-Cashcrews

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Cashcrews and Captjon hit this one on the button. I was out on Tofte last Saturday. We pulled cowbells on downriggers 20 ft down. We ended up landing 13 and lost around 6 or 7 fish, they where all rainbows in the 14-17 inch range.

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catching fish on tofte can be really easy, depending on what you have for equipment. downriggers, cowbells etc, the rainbows in there are everywhere, shallow and deep and in between. a simple slip bobber and crawler from a boat or even off shore will work. its really that simple.

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Thank you for the tips!! We brought worms with but only floated them from bottom from shore.

We will have to go and get some bigger blades for the cowbells!

Thanks again!!

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