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SD2OR with a trophy fall walleye

Topic: Early spring 2020 lake trout fishing on Flathead Lake  (Read 7406 times)

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pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 1989
In 2019, Flathead Lake almost completely froze over, and large portions of the lake were still iced over at the end of March.  Due to all the ice, the first day I went kayak fishing in 2019 was April 2, and there was still about a foot of snow on the ground.

This year, none of Flathead Lake froze over, and I got in my first day of kayak fishing on March 5.  It was 25 degrees when I launched, but it warmed up during the day, with only light breezes and minor waves.  There were only a few spots of snow on the ground.  It was a pleasant way to start the kayak fishing season, but I expect to encounter plenty of snow and other nasty weather well into April.

I was up late the night before pulling together my kayak fishing gear, some of which had been with my ice fishing gear all winter.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 02:32:58 PM by pmmpete »


Helium Head

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  • Location: Outer NW Portland
  • Date Registered: Mar 2016
  • Posts: 366
Great pics, especially that trout on your lap.
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Larry_MayII_HR

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  • Location: Corvallis, OR
  • Date Registered: Jun 2017
  • Posts: 150
Great pictures - thanks for sharing!  Are you jigging for them or trolling, or neither?  I'm going to try for my first lake trout catch this spring here in Oregon and would be interested in any early season tips you might be willing to share.  Cheers!


pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
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Great pictures - thanks for sharing!  Are you jigging for them or trolling, or neither?  I'm going to try for my first lake trout catch this spring here in Oregon and would be interested in any early season tips you might be willing to share.  Cheers!
I was jigging for the lake trout right on the bottom in 150-240 feet of water, which is a productive strategy in the spring on Flathead Lake. 

It seems to me that lake trout hang out in different areas and depths in different lakes, based on the depths and water temperatures of the lake, and the kind of food available in the lake. For example, Flathead Lake contains a large population of Mysis shrimp which hang out on the bottom during the day in 200-300 feet of water, and a lot of lake trout in Flathead Lake hang out in the same areas and vacuum up Mysis shrimp.  In lakes without Mysis shrimp, lake trout seem to have significantly different feeding patterns.  For example, in Lindbergh Lake in Montana, which doesn't contain Mysis shrimp, I catch most of my lake trout in 50-70 feet of water.  In Flaming Gorge Reservoir, there are a lot of suspended lake trout - when downrigger trolling for kokanee, I caught as many lake trout as I did kokanee.  You don't see many suspended lake trout in Flathead lake.  And in Flaming Gorge Reservoir, I caught lake trout on the bottom in 70 feet of water which had stomachs stuffed with crayfish, something I haven't found in Montana. See the pictures below.

In addition, lake trout move around a lot in lakes from one month to the other.  For example, in the fall they move into shallow water to spawn, and they may be in completely different areas in the spring, and in the summer.  You need to figure out where the lake trout hang out in your lakes in Oregon in different months of the year.

The Division of Fish, Wildlife, Recreation, and Conservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes has produced some very useful videos and brochures on catching lake trout on Flathead Lake by jigging, by trolling, and by casting from docks and shore.  These are available on the Mack Days web page at https://www.mackdays.com/Movies/, and you can contact Cindy Benson at cindyb@cskt.org or (406) 675-2700 and ask for free copies of a two DVD set of videos and three different brochures.  The videos are excellent, but the brochures (which are listed as "companion PDFs" on the Mack Days web page) are even better. 

Great pics, especially that trout on your lap.
That was my first kayak fishing lake trout of 2020, and it was 29" long.  I didn't weigh it before I bled it and gutted it and put it on ice in my cooler. I got a total of eight lake trout that day.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2020, 05:15:20 PM by pmmpete »


Stinger Hook

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  • Location: Hillsboro, OR
  • Date Registered: Sep 2015
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Great report with nice pics (as usual...I looked up the location of Flathead Lake after one of your previous reports...Only to find out it is way too far away :-[).

Thanks a lot for the link that you shared. Both videos and brochures are very informative and I will give jigging for late trout a try one day in a (closer) Oregon or Washington lake.


Larry_MayII_HR

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Thanks a lot for the pointers.  From what I hear around here in Oregon, most of the macks are eating kokanee, but it would be foolish to think that they only have one food source.  Looking forward to watching those videos after I get off work...


pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
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Thanks a lot for the pointers.  From what I hear around here in Oregon, most of the macks are eating kokanee, but it would be foolish to think that they only have one food source.  Looking forward to watching those videos after I get off work...
Flathead Lake used to have a terrific kokanee fishery, and in the fall, spawning kokanee attracted hundreds of eagles to McDonald Creek in Glacier Park.  But when the population of mysis shrimp in Flathead Lake exploded in the mid 1980s, the lake trout population also exploded, and the kokanee population crashed.  There now are essentially no kokanee in Flathead Lake.  For a short but very interesting explanation of these population changes and the effect of the introduction of various non-native species to Flathead Lake over the last 130 years, see http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall2012/ellis.html.

When there were a lot of kokanee in Flathead Lake, the lake trout were very oily.  Old-timers joke that back in those days, if you tried to barbeque a lake trout, it would catch on fire.  An advantage of the disappearance of the kokanee fishery from Flathead Lake is that now the lake trout are not at all oily, and are quite tasty.  In Odell Lake in Oregon, where large kokanee and lake trout populations co-exist, the lake trout are quite oily.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2020, 05:04:18 PM by pmmpete »


Helium Head

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  • Location: Outer NW Portland
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Thanks for the link to “Long-Term Effects of Nonnative Species Introductions to Flathead Lake, Montana”. Maybe the “we know best” strategy will get it right ... next time, for now you get to enjoy some monster trout!
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pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 1989
Mack Days started on March 19.  I fished on the 20th with a friend (shown in the second picture below) and on the 21st by myself.  There was still ice high on rocks from a big windstorm on March 14 which blew down a lot of trees and apparently had mighty big waves, but the weather was mild. On the 21st, I first fished an area which has a lot of large lake trout in 170-180 feet of water at the base of a steep slope.  I would snoop around until I found a lake trout on my fish finder, and then would hover over the spot, drop down a lure, and jig.  I pretty quickly caught six pretty good sized lake trout, including a 32", 31" and 29" fish. These fish maxed out my cooler, so I pedaled back to my car and put them in a large cooler.  Then I fished an area in 200 feet of water which has a lot of medium and small lake trout, and caught another 14 lake trout.

The picture of my fish finder screen shows two or three lake trout checking out my lure, which was right on the bottom. I raised the lure about 8 feet, and the fish followed it up and back down. A few seconds after I took that picture, the 32" lake trout chomped my lure.

In the north half of Flathead Lake, the fishing regulations don't let you keep lake trout between 30 and 36 inches, and only one per day over 36 inches.  In the south half of Flathead Lake, which is in the Flathead Reservation, you can keep any sized lake trout.  In order to avoid favoring anglers who fish in the south half of the lake, the Mack Days rules don't count lake trout over 30 inches.  So my 32" and 31" lake trout won't be included in my Mack Days total.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2020, 07:45:03 PM by pmmpete »


conquestdz

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  • Date Registered: Jan 2019
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I'm going to have to go fish there one of these days.  Did you end up fishing in Hawaii?


pmmpete

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  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
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I'm going to have to go fish there one of these days.  Did you end up fishing in Hawaii?
No, unfortunately. I hope to be able to arrange some kayak fishing next time I go to Hawaii.


pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 1989
On March 26, Governor Bullock ordered Montanans to stay at home to avoid spreading COVID-19, except to engage in essential activities. One of those essential activities is outdoor activities, which certainly include fishing.  So a friend and I felt obligated to go lake trout fishing today on Flathead Lake, while of course maintaining social distancing.  It wasn't fun.  We only did it because we felt it was our responsibility.


Amik

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  • Date Registered: May 2015
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Flathead Lake is indeed a beautiful and unique fishery Peter! Rain or shine.


pmmpete

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  • Location: Missoula, Montana
  • Date Registered: Jul 2013
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This spring we've been doing a lot of kayak fishing fishing on Flathead Lake in cool weather, with snow squalls blowing through periodically.  April 9 was a welcome change: light breezes and temperatures which rose to the high 60s in the afternoon.  And the lake trout were cooperative. But the weather is supposed to revert to semi-winter conditions soon, with snow on April 11 and temperatures down to 10 degrees at the lake on the morning of April 12.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2020, 06:55:59 AM by pmmpete »


pmmpete

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April 4 felt a bit like winter in the morning, but got nicer during the day.  We caught a bunch of smallish lake trout, but the bigger fish weren't interested.  The Tribes closed down Mack Days because of the virus whose name must not be spoken, so we had to take home whatever fish we caught and kept.  Because I have a lot of lake trout in my freezer, I released most of the fish I caught.  Bigger lake trout almost always belch out air as they are being pulled to the surface, so they don't experience barotrauma and can be released without any problem.  Smaller lake trout are more likely to arrive at the surface bloated with air.  However, I have found that if I stop reeling a small fish in a couple of times in the upper half of the water column and let it sit quietly for 15-20 seconds, they will usually let air out of their air bladder and can be released. The air bubbles are visible on a fish finder.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2020, 08:56:05 AM by pmmpete »


 

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