NorthWest Kayak Anglers
Regional Discussions => Montana Kayak Fishing => Topic started by: pmmpete on April 15, 2018, 07:38:13 PM
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I made the switch from ice fishing to kayak fishing today by going jigging for lake trout on Flathead Lake. The water temperature was 35 degrees, and there was very little wind, which made it easier to jig. We each got 5 lake trout. My biggest lake trout were 35" and 30." Mack Days is in progress, and the guy I was with, Mark McMillan, caught a tagged lake trout worth $100. That paid for his gas!
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those are some beauties from a beautiful location.
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Pmmpete, how will you prepare or eat that monster mack?
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That would make a lot of MacSushi, lol. Hoping some might make the smoker, eager to hear how that portion comes out.
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Pmmpete, how will you prepare or eat that monster mack?
I won't. Because lake trout and other piscavores concentrate toxins from further down the food chain, the Montana Sport Fish Consumption Guidelines recommend that men not eat lake trout from Flathead Lake which are 30 inches or bigger, and that women and children not eat lake trout from Flathead Lake which are 26 inches or bigger. The guidelines are available at http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjw5oWpqL_aAhXHhVQKHSQ6CIAQFgg0MAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffwp.mt.gov%2FfwpDoc.html%3Fid%3D28187&usg=AOvVaw1injDd45O-vQBizJwkktNT . As a result, I turned in the big fish to the Mack Days organizers, and I took several of the smaller fish which my friend caught instead.
But other than the size issue, lake trout from Flathead Lake and other lakes in Montana are great cooked, and they're great smoked. They can be cooked with any salmon recipe. I'm smoking this particular batch of lake trout.
That would make a lot of MacSushi, lol. Hoping some might make the smoker, eager to hear how that portion comes out.
I'll post some pictures of the smoked lake trout.
In some lakes which have a lot of kokanee, such as Odell Lake, the lake trout get very oily. That isn't a problem in Flathead Lake, because the Macks have eaten all the kokanee.
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Nice one Pete.
Some people might not know about Mack Days and how it's different than your average fishing contest. Can you lay out the details.
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Nice one Pete.
Some people might not know about Mack Days and how it's different than your average fishing contest. Can you lay out the details.
At first I didn't understand why you would keep the Mack and this is the first time I've heard of Mack Days. I looked it up and what a great program!
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Congratulations Pete those are some beauties. Nice to see Flathead has some calm days.
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Some people might not know about Mack Days and how it's different than your average fishing contest. Can you lay out the details.
Mack days is a twice-a-year two-month-long fishing event on Flathead Lake in Montana which is sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes as part of its efforts to protect bull trout and other native fish species by reducing the population of lake trout, which are an introduced species. There is a Spring Mack Days which runs from the middle of March to the middle of May, and a Fall Mack Days of the same length. There are up to $225,000 of cash and prizes offered for each Mack Days. See http://www.mackdays.com/ for more information.
For the statistics for the 2018 Spring Mack Days, see http://www.mackdays.com/Stats2/ . As you can see, contestants frequently catch the limit of 100 lake trout. The anglers who are getting high numbers usually get them by jigging on the bottom in 180-300 feet of water for young lake trout about a foot long, but there are plenty of bigger fish in the lake.
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If I read the counts right, that's some serious
fishing catching! Might be worth a trip!
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If I read the counts right, that's some serious fishing catching! Might be worth a trip!
Anglers who know how to catch lake trout on Flathead Lake can definitely catch a lot of lake trout on Flathead Lake. For example, the top two anglers in the 2018 Spring Mack Days have each had six days on which they caught 100 lake trout, which is the limit on Flathead Lake. Think about how many fish you need to catch per hour in order to catch 100 fish on a day on the lake! And remember that those fish are probably all going to be 180-300 feet down, so it takes some time just to get a lure down to that level, and to get a fish up to the surface.
For us mere mortals, it's nice to know that there are a lot of lake trout in the lake, but I'm not interested in catching 100 fish a day, and I'm not interested in fishing day after day at that pace. It would start to feel like a job. But even if you only dabble in the Mack Days, you have a chance at some nice prizes - for example, the guy I was fishing with on April 15 caught a tagged fish worth $100.
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Looks like great fishing day :-)
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I smoked five of the ten lake trout which we caught on April 15.
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Looks great! I'm curious about your pans of brine. I've always been told to avoid metal as the fish can pick up a "metal" taste. I can tell if the fish is in bags that are sitting in the pans or covered with plastic. I've always used glass containers.
Also, I received this note from Cindy Benson and expect to get the materials on fishing the lake sometime. Thanks:
I am away from the office. Will forward and make sure it gets to you.
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Smartphone
On Apr 17, 2018 8:37 AM, Cynthia Benson <cindy.benson@cskt.org> wrote:
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Looks great! I'm curious about your pans of brine. I've always been told to avoid metal as the fish can pick up a "metal" taste. I can tell if the fish is in bags that are sitting in the pans or covered with plastic. I've always used glass containers.
Also, I received this note from Cindy Benson and expect to get the materials on fishing the lake sometime. Thanks:
I am away from the office. Will forward and make sure it gets to you.
I brine fish for smoking in ziplock bags, because I can get almost all of the air out of the bags, and because it makes it easy to ensure that the fish pieces get equally exposed to the brine by periodically flipping the bags to a different position and squishing the bags around to mix up the pieces of fish. Before I took the picture I tucked the tops of the ziplock bags under the bags so they didn't interfere with the view of the fish pieces and brine.
During Mack Days, Cindy spends her days running around handling the logistics of this two-month-long event. For example, last Sunday evening she checked in my fish at Blue Bay, and was managing the staff who were processing the fish turned in there by anglers. Hopefully she'll have somebody else in her office get you the DVDs, map, and brochures about how to catch lake trout.
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The lake trout fishing has continued to be good. Here is Mark McMillin pulling in one of the eight lake trout he caught on April 22.
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Very nice! I hooked into my 1st like at Flathead. I say hooked into, because I failed to land it.