Lake trout question

[riversmallmouth35]

I am heading up to the BWCA in early June and I was wondering how deep the Lake trout would be. I heard from a friend that the Lake trout are in the shalows that time a year in 10-20ft. of water. Last year we fished pretty deep and caught a couple fish but nothing much. Don't know to much about lake trout. What should I use if the fish are in the shallows.

Thanks for any help.

[Steve Foss]

Most times in early June, you can still find lakers fairly shallow. But this has been a warm spring, and I would expect you'll probably find them a bit deeper. They prefer water temps in the mid 50s, and on Burntside Lake near Ely today, surface water temps already were in the low 50s in most places.

If you have slip sinkers that weigh a couple ounces, you can put them a few feet up the line from your spoon or rapala and troll as you paddle. You can just keep that rod out trolling anywhere you are as you cross any of the laker lakes on your route and hope to hit one or two.

Otherwise, if you're looking at lake maps before you start, or if you have a portable depth finder, look for steeply sloping shorelines and main lake points or humps giving way to deep water. If you don't have any of those things, check out which lakes on your route hold lakers, and let the shoreline topography guide you. If there are cliffs or steep shorlines, you'll likely find deep water close in to shore.

Trolling lures include any spoon, spinner or rapala, and walleye size is plenty big. If you really want to spend some time for lakers and have maps or knowledge of the topography of some laker lakes, you can get some heavy jigging spoons like those used for ice fishing, or bucktail jigs tipped with minnow heads or chunks of cisco, and vertical jig for the lakers.

While vertical jigging, just let the breeze push you as you go.

You can also just use a sinker and a hook and hook up a dead frozen cisco and cast it out from shore when you camp, if you camp on a laker lake with deeper water (say, 20 feet or more) near your campsite. Lots of lakers have hit the frying pan after hitting a dead cisco sitting on the bottom. They are aggressive fish, but they also are vacuum cleaners.

Good luck!

[osprey]

while lakers can be at any depth and regularly will rise 40 or more ft. to hit a bait . its been my experiance that lakers (depending on the lake and bait )in june would most likely be in 50 ft or so .for me that that means i can concentrate on structure running from 100+ to 35 ft where it would be likly that lakers would intercept ciscoes. its just walleye fishing on a different scale . deep(20ft) running crank baits with rattles will still catch fish and i have also brought in small dipsy divers to cover the depths better.foss was right on with the jigging thing too. putting a rod holder on your canoe is very handy, and net is too. they have such strong bodys , plus all those treble hooks. its a safety issue. having said all that i have been in situation where lakers were in even less then 10ft. feeding on mayflys - then we used shinners on lindy rig, and krocidile spoons (small). thats my 2cts, best of luck.

[riversmallmouth35]

Thanks you guys for the advice. The lake I will be fishing the trout in drops of fairly quick. Last year we caught the fish suspended 20 feet down in 80 feet of water. I will try your guys advice when I get out.

Thanks.

[Great Outdoors]

Steve,

Burntside surface temps 54-56 degrees everywhere I went today, hard to believe the ice went off 18 days ago and it's this warm.

[osprey]

I'm head into the bwca this week on a trout expedition. i will let you know what i learned when i get back .

[chunkytrout]

53 consistant mostly. It is hard to believe though.

[Surface Tension]

Depth is going to vary from lake to lake. Best piece of equipment for early inland laker fishing is a thermometer. You can get one with a 50'lead. If thats not long enough the lakers are shallow anymore.

[osprey]

hey just made it back and here is the report . we fished two different kind of lakes one that was a small lake the max. depth was 50 ft. it was a lake to be sure that was probably going to be a small fish lake . we caught 6 trout .5 on shallow crankbaits 6-12ft and most came close to shore.. one on a slip bobber from shore in 15 ft. slip bobber was rigged with a shinner. most of our fishing was done on a larger lake and the fishing was pretty good, most of our fish came in 25-42ft. a lot of these fish came off ciscoes and set lines and we picked up another 10 or so on crankbaits that dove at least 12 ft' and to 25 ft' green and white and blue and white. more fish on blue and white but then again we fish blue and white very hard. raps did best tail dancers and deep running husky jerks. fishing the majors solar was incredably ( watch the spelling) productive. the hits pick up at least 5 - 1 all in all on the majors. because of the weather we did a lot shore fishing and it work very well. hope you have as good a time. best of luck --OSPREY.

[SKIPPERS KID]

I look for water temps but I look at what there are for Bait fish and try to match it with what I have. As the temp get warmer the fish will go deeper bait rigs work great as well as spoons and sticks but the stick bait will came to a stop as temp warm up and you will be using smelt or siscos, Or spoons with down riggers or weight as you fish them in the deeper water. It takes time to learn but the more you try and get out and learn when you get one what you did to get that fish keep the same game in play till the bite stops and try deeper than you where. Just keep at it and you will get it sooner than you think . Good luck,