Fall Laker Trip to Gunflint trail

[toonfish]

I had good success in the beginning of august for lakers up on the gunflint. Just wondering what to expect for a fall trip Mid-September. By this time are the lakers moving shallower or is it still too early for that move to spawn. I just want to be prepared. I have downrigger and dipsys, but want to be prepared for any depth. Do I need to think a lot shallower than I did in August? I ran all spoons in August, mostly on a dipsy, depths ranged from 45-80 ft. and we got fish anywhere in between, should I look to change it up? When looking to jig, what do you like to use for artificials Gulp, tubes???? Thanks for the help, fairly new to laker fishing.

We may also venture of to find some lakes with more species available. What lakes, mid trail are good for some fast smallie and or pike action? We are looking for lakes with a boat access, no canoeing this time around....

[Steve Foss]

Really it depends on water temps and lake turnover. If the surface 20 or 25 feet (above the summer thermocline), has cooled to 55 or so, then the whole water column is back in play just like it is all winter, spring and early summer.

So check surface temps to see if you're temp limited. And troll a variety of depths until you start marking fish. I'm still finding all my fish deep right now, but I expect that to change in the next week or so. Surface temps up here on Burntside had dropped from 73-74 to 63-65 as of yesterday.

For vertical jigging in open water, Sonars and Rattlin Raps work great. So do 1-2 oz bucktail jigs. You don't need to tip them with anything.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Rattlin Raps work great.

Oooo, good call! Are you talking about the "original" Rat-L-Trap Lipless Crankbaits?

Never thought about those used in a vertical presentation... Guess I better make some more room in my tackle box.

[Steve Foss]

Any of them work just fine. I've got a bunch of Rattlin Raps, which are Rapalas, not the original Rat-L-Traps.

[Northlander]

Yes lipless are the ones he spaeks of Im pretty sure. They draw fish in from a distance with all the vibration and rattles. One hint is if they wont hit that have another rod rigged with a jighead and power smelt and they usually will hit that after getting them under you with the rattle trap.

[bugman83]

I was up on Greenwood this weekend. Very windy on Sat so only fished hard on Sunday. Didn't manage any fish but marked most of the fish in about 50-65 fow. Pretty new to trolling. Tried using a 40 ft Jet Diver with a spoon then switched to a crank. Had one hit but didn't hook up. Caught a few smallies in 45 FOW. Have only caught 1 laker on greenwood and that was late June in about 38 FOW with a sucker minnow suspended in about 30 FOW. I'm also doing a trip up there Sept 23-27. Hoping to have a bit more success. I will probably be on closer to the trip asking for conditions. Water on Greenwood was about 63 degrees. Also do people prefer Dipsy Diver to Jet Divers? I wasn't sure if my Jet Diver was really trolling in 40 FOW, let out a 100FT of line and trolled about 1.5-2.5 MPH. Thanks for starting this post, hope to learn some new tricks!

-NB

[toonfish]

When I was up fishing lakers in early august I caught all fish on dipsey. One thing I noticed was the dipsey seemed to take a lot of fight out of the fish. I caught a lot about 18-22 inches with the biggest being 26. Is this pretty typical for fish caught on a dipsey? I was using the magnum dipsey, biggest I could find. Seemed to work very well at getting me to the right depth. But fish seemed pretty lazy, no matter how much I played them. Another question. What is a successful day of laker fishing? I was pretty excited about my catches as I spent a week at the lake and caught about 25-30 fish spending about 2-4 hrs a day trolling. Is this good? Just trying to compare success to a walleye trips for instance. Some trips out I would catch 1 in 4 hrs. Other days I would catch 5-10.

[Weez]

Bugman, fished up there over the same dates last year. Sunny whether, trolling 1.5mph with spoons and down riggers, and in a mater of minutes limited out, mid day with no fish all morning or night before. We had our lakers and then had fun with the small mouth.

[Steve Foss]

Weez, what kind of spoons were you trolling at those speeds?

[bugman83]

Thanks for the info! Is 1.5 on the slow side? I also like to tie rabbit strip double bunnies and other version, always thought you could try trolling these with some extra flash tied in. Can't wait to get back up there!

thanks for the info-

NB

[Steve Foss]

Some spoons roll over at slower speeds than others. I like to troll spoons just at the speed the action changes from a side-to-side wobble to the spoon rolling over. That way when you S turn and speed up/slow down, you're transitioning the spoon from wobble to rollover and back, which adds darting and irregular action to the bait.

Most of my spoons roll over about 2.3 to 2.5.

Spoons like Little Cleos, and some other stubbier designs roll over at slower speeds.