NorthWest Kayak Anglers
Regional Discussions => Montana Kayak Fishing => Topic started by: pmmpete on May 18, 2017, 09:06:23 PM
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I was out of circulation from fishing for two weeks due to a 10-day 200-mile kayak trip on the Dolores River in southwest Colorado and eastern Utah. As soon as I got back, I headed to Lindbergh Lake for a day of Lake Trout fishing. It was fun, until I got chased off the lake by a series of wind and snow squalls.
(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/pmmpete/P5141491a_zpsvloxhtum.jpg) (http://s1094.photobucket.com/user/pmmpete/media/P5141491a_zpsvloxhtum.jpg.html)
(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/pmmpete/P5141495a_zpstqjgzaqe.jpg) (http://s1094.photobucket.com/user/pmmpete/media/P5141495a_zpstqjgzaqe.jpg.html)
(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/pmmpete/P5141500a_zpsht6vqagt.jpg) (http://s1094.photobucket.com/user/pmmpete/media/P5141500a_zpsht6vqagt.jpg.html)
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Gorgeous lake and... laker? :) Wish I could join you out there. Looks amazing.
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Nice work! You make it look easy
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What do you prefer as the best way to prepare lake trout for the table?
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What do you prefer as the best way to prepare lake trout for the table?
Any salmon recipe works fine with lake trout. Here is a favorite easy recipe for lake trout, kokanee, or whatever: Sprinkle the lake trout fillets with black pepper, slather them with peach-mango or pineapple salsa, and bake them at 400 degrees until they are done. Walmart sells a nice peach-mango salsa.
The lake trout from Flathead Lake, Lindbergh Lake, and other lakes that I am aware of in Western Montana are not at all oily, and they taste a lot like salmon. However, in lakes which have a lot of kokanee, like Odell Lake in Washington, lake trout can be quite oily. Flathead Lake used to have a great kokanee fishery, and the lake trout were very oily. Old timers joked that if you tried to barbeque a lake trout, it would catch on fire. But after the introduction of mysis shrimp to Flathead Lake, the kokanee fishery completely disappeared, and the lake trout are no longer oily.
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So how was your 200 mile trip, Pete? Apparently you lived.
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So how was your 200 mile trip, Pete? Apparently you lived.
The Dolores trip was great, and yes I lived. I posted some pictures on Facebook.
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I caught three lake trout on Lindbergh Lake on June 30, including a 30" and a 29." And I lost two big ones next to my kayak.
I started the day by downrigger trolling, but when I trolled over a group of lake trout, I stopped and switched to jigging. I quickly caught a pretty nice one, probably around 26 inches. As I slid it into my net, the lure hooked on the mesh on the rim of the net. Dang! I tried to flop it over the rim and into the net about eight times, but eventually it pulled itself loose and disappeared into the deeps. I should have tried to grab it with my lip gripper.
I kept jigging, and pretty soon I had a bigger mack on the line, probably 28"-30'. But as I was pulling it towards my net it started thrashing around like a tarpon, got loose, and followed the first fish into the depths.
I jigged some more, and hooked a mack which put up quite a fight. I succeeded in getting my net around that one. It was 29 inches long.
The group of fish I was working dispersed, so I want back to downrigger trolling. After a while I caught a 30" lake trout.
I kept fishing, alternating between downrigger trolling and jigging, and got various bites and a 23" lake trout. After lunch, a series of rain and wind squalls drove me off the lake.
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What do you prefer as the best way to prepare lake trout for the table?
Any salmon recipe works fine with lake trout. Here is a favorite easy recipe for lake trout, kokanee, or whatever: Sprinkle the lake trout fillets with black pepper, slather them with peach-mango or pineapple salsa, and bake them at 400 degrees until they are done. Walmart sells a nice peach-mango salsa.
The lake trout from Flathead Lake, Lindbergh Lake, and other lakes that I am aware of in Western Montana are not at all oily, and they taste a lot like salmon. However, in lakes which have a lot of kokanee, like Odell Lake in Washington, lake trout can be quite oily. Flathead Lake used to have a great kokanee fishery, and the lake trout were very oily. Old timers joked that if you tried to barbeque a lake trout, it would catch on fire. But after the introduction of mysis shrimp to Flathead Lake, the kokanee fishery completely disappeared, and the lake trout are no longer oily.
Curious how you might expect Lake Chelan macks to be in terms oiliness. They have a mysis shrimp population there, but also a substantial kokanee population. Apparently the macks feed mostly on the mysis shrimp until they get fairly large, then they switch to feeding mostly on kokanee, and other trout. Which means the smaller ones might not be especially oily, while the larger ones probably are oily?
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I caught three lake trout on Lindbergh Lake on June 30, including a 30" and a 29." And I lost two big ones next to my kayak.
I started the day by downrigger trolling, but when I trolled over a group of lake trout, I stopped and switched to jigging. I quickly caught a pretty nice one, probably around 26 inches. As I slid it into my net, the lure hooked on the mesh on the rim of the net. Dang! I tried to flop it over the rim and into the net about eight times, but eventually it pulled itself loose and disappeared into the deeps. I should have tried to grab it with my lip gripper.
I kept jigging, and pretty soon I had a bigger mack on the line, probably 28"-30'. But as I was pulling it towards my net it started thrashing around like a tarpon, got loose, and followed the first fish into the depths.
I jigged some more, and hooked a mack which put up quite a fight. I succeeded in getting my net around that one. It was 29 inches long.
The group of fish I was working dispersed, so I want back to downrigger trolling. After a while I caught a 30" lake trout.
I kept fishing, alternating between downrigger trolling and jigging, and got various bites and a 23" lake trout. After lunch, a series of rain and wind squalls drove me off the lake.
What kinds of jigs do you find to be effective? How deep are you usually fishing for macks in Lindbergh Lake? If I ever get my opportunity to hit Chelan I want to be set for the best possible success.
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The lake trout from Flathead Lake, Lindbergh Lake, and other lakes that I am aware of in Western Montana are not at all oily, and they taste a lot like salmon. However, in lakes which have a lot of kokanee, like Odell Lake in Washington, lake trout can be quite oily. Flathead Lake used to have a great kokanee fishery, and the lake trout were very oily. Old timers joked that if you tried to barbeque a lake trout, it would catch on fire. But after the introduction of mysis shrimp to Flathead Lake, the kokanee fishery completely disappeared, and the lake trout are no longer oily.
Curious how you might expect Lake Chelan macks to be in terms oiliness. They have a mysis shrimp population there, but also a substantial kokanee population. Apparently the macks feed mostly on the mysis shrimp until they get fairly large, then they switch to feeding mostly on kokanee, and other trout. Which means the smaller ones might not be especially oily, while the larger ones probably are oily?
It makes sense that young Lake Chelan lake trout would not be oily, but older Lake Chelan lake trout would be oily. However, things are sometimes more complicated than we may think. For example, in Flathead Lake there is apparently one strain of lake trout which spends much of its life chowing down on Mysis Shrimp on the bottom in 200-300 feet of water, and another strain which spends most of its life in shallower water eating fish. But there is a lot of variation in the color of Flathead Lake Macks, with some being a rich orange color, and others a light yellow color, and some of the small lake trout are orange, and other small lake trout are yellow. And in Lindbergh Lake most of the lake trout are a rich orange color, but as far as I know there aren't any Mysis Shrimp in Lindbergh. Get out to Lake Chelan, catch some Macks, and give us a report on their color and oiliness.
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The lake trout from Flathead Lake, Lindbergh Lake, and other lakes that I am aware of in Western Montana are not at all oily, and they taste a lot like salmon. However, in lakes which have a lot of kokanee, like Odell Lake in Washington, lake trout can be quite oily. Flathead Lake used to have a great kokanee fishery, and the lake trout were very oily. Old timers joked that if you tried to barbeque a lake trout, it would catch on fire. But after the introduction of mysis shrimp to Flathead Lake, the kokanee fishery completely disappeared, and the lake trout are no longer oily.
Curious how you might expect Lake Chelan macks to be in terms oiliness. They have a mysis shrimp population there, but also a substantial kokanee population. Apparently the macks feed mostly on the mysis shrimp until they get fairly large, then they switch to feeding mostly on kokanee, and other trout. Which means the smaller ones might not be especially oily, while the larger ones probably are oily?
It makes sense that young Lake Chelan lake trout would not be oily, but older Lake Chelan lake trout would be oily. However, things are sometimes more complicated than we may think. For example, in Flathead Lake there is apparently one strain of lake trout which spends much of its life chowing down on Mysis Shrimp on the bottom in 200-300 feet of water, and another strain which spends most of its life in shallower water eating fish. But there is a lot of variation in the color of Flathead Lake Macks, with some being a rich orange color, and others a light yellow color, and some of the small lake trout are orange, and other small lake trout are yellow. And in Lindbergh Lake most of the lake trout are a rich orange color, but as far as I know there aren't any Mysis Shrimp in Lindbergh. Get out to Lake Chelan, catch some Macks, and give us a report on their color and oiliness.
Chelan is open for macks year round. So I just need to find a good time in my schedule. Might aim for sometime in the fall, or next spring. Quite a bit of this fall is going to occupied with a business trip to India and the Netherlands. Sadly, my usual opportunity of spring break for fishing trips (due to SWMBO taking the kids to Oregon) is getting messed up by the kids' academics lately being on 2-3 different spring break schedules. So there's no single week where they're all off. Some stuff is off one week, some the next week, and some the week after that, so she's not been leaving town. And when she's home it's harder to get away.
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What kinds of jigs do you find to be effective? How deep are you usually fishing for macks in Lindbergh Lake? If I ever get my opportunity to hit Chelan I want to be set for the best possible success.
The south half of Flathead Lake is in the Flathead Reservation, and the Resources Department of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes has prepared some excellent videos and brochures on catching lake trout in Flathead Lake via jigging, trolling, and dock fishing, which are available at http://www.mackdays.com/Movies/. The videos contain interviews or presentations by experienced and successful lake trout anglers, and the brochures to a great job of summarizing the advice from those anglers. The jigging brochure contains pictures of some jigging rigs favored by people who place high in the Mack Days derbies. These are people who frequently catch their limit of 100 lake trout a day during Mack Days, so they know what they are doing. Dick Zimmer at Zimmer Tackle in Pablo has some of their favorite rigs on display and for sale in his shop. You could call Dick and order a couple of rigs. Follow the detailed advice about jigging technique in the brochure; it works.
These rigs are basically vertical lead jigs the length of your thumb with a treble hook, or round-head lead jigs with a single fixed hook, coupled with a fly which is on a separate leader, or is mounted on the leader to the lead jig. You want a pretty heavy jig so you can get to the bottom fast when you're fishing in 180-300 feet of water, and so you can maintain a tight line at those depths. Put a piece of cut bait about 1 inch square smeared with flavor on the lead jig; some anglers also put a small piece of bait on their fly as well. Many anglers catch the majority of their lake trout on the fly rather than on the jig, particularly when targeting smaller lake trout.
My current favorite lake trout jigging rig is a green or chartreuse Zimmer "Rattle-D-Zaster" jig about three inches long (I think it's 1.5 oz), with a treble hook fly mounted on the leader for the jig about a foot above the jig.
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Chelan is open for macks year round. So I just need to find a good time in my schedule. Might aim for sometime in the fall, or next spring. Quite a bit of this fall is going to occupied with a business trip to India and the Netherlands. Sadly, my usual opportunity of spring break for fishing trips (due to SWMBO taking the kids to Oregon) is getting messed up by the kids' academics lately being on 2-3 different spring break schedules. So there's no single week where they're all off. Some stuff is off one week, some the next week, and some the week after that, so she's not been leaving town. And when she's home it's harder to get away.
Fishing for lake trout in the fall is different from fishing for them in the spring or the summer, because in the fall they come in to shallower water to spawn. Ask people who fish Chelan Lake frequently about where to fish for Macks at different times of the year. Although Lake Trout usually hang out on the bottom in deep water, in the winter I've caught a lot of lake trout in 4-6 feet of water in East Bay on Flathead Lake, which is a large shallow bay. They come in to the bay to eat perch. It's pretty cool to be able to watch down your hole as great big lake trout swim up, grab your bait, and run off with it, only a few feet below the surface.
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I caught a 30.5" and a 28" lake trout by jigging for a couple hours the morning of July 4. I lost a bigger fish, probably 32"-34", from my net. The lure got hooked in the net, it got its tail on the rim of my 24" x 20" net and flipped itself out of the net, the lure popped loose, and it waved goodbye with its tail as it headed for the bottom. I should have raised the rim of the net higher.
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I caught a 33", a 29", and a 25.5" lake trout on Lindbergh Lake on June 11.
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Big trout in Big Sky Country! Nice fish and a beautiful place to fish! I might have to talk TLW into a micro vacation your direction.
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I caught a 33", a 29", and a 25.5" lake trout on Lindbergh Lake on June 11.
Man, those are some monsters! Sure beats the little rainbows I pulled in off of the dock yesterday (Echo Lake in Shoreline, WA). Great photos too - beautiful blue lake water with that view of the Rockies... spectacular!
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I caught two lake trout on Lindbergh Lake today, one of them 32 inches long. The lake trout fishing on Lindbergh Lake is a lot slower than the lake trout fishing on Flathead Lake, because there are a lot fewer lake trout in Lindbergh Lake, but it's a pretty lake and fun fishing.
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On May 24 I caught three lake trout on Lindbergh Lake (27.5", 28", and 28.5").
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On July 4 I caught a 33", 29", and 28" lake trout on Lindbergh Lake. The flesh of lake trout from this lake has a rich orange color, and they're particularly tasty.
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Thanks for the EYE CANDY!
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I caught two lake trout on Lindbergh Lake today, one of them 32 inches long. The lake trout fishing on Lindbergh Lake is a lot slower than the lake trout fishing on Flathead Lake, because there are a lot fewer lake trout in Lindbergh Lake, but it's a pretty lake and fun fishing.
Its ironic that you are from Montana sharing your photos on NWKA. Being from another landlocked state (Wyoming) I appreciate seeing your success. I am working on setting myself up for laketrout jigging for Flaming Gorge. I only picked up one 28" trolling on Labor Day weekend. Need to set up for jigging since the fish are generally down at least 100'.
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Its ironic that you are from Montana sharing your photos on NWKA. Being from another landlocked state (Wyoming) I appreciate seeing your success. I am working on setting myself up for laketrout jigging for Flaming Gorge. I only picked up one 28" trolling on Labor Day weekend. Need to set up for jigging since the fish are generally down at least 100'.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have produced some videos and brochures which are excellent sources of information about lake trout fishing. The videos are very useful, and the brochures are outstanding. The videos and brochures ("companion PDFs") are available under the "movies" tab on the Mack Days website. Or you can ask Cindy Benson (cindyb@cskt.org) to send you a free set of 2 DVDs and copies of the brochures, although she's pretty tied up now with the Fall Mack Days and may not get back to you soon. There are certainly differences between lake trout fishing on Flathead Lake and lake trout fishing on other lakes. For example, for much of the year, lake trout tend to be a lot deeper in Flathead Lake than they are in many other lakes. In the Spring, 170-240 feet is the most productive depth to jig. But despite those differences, I think you'll find the videos and brochures very helpful.
I have caught lake trout by jigging on Flaming Gorge, but I also caught a surprising number of lake trout when I was downrigger trolling for kokanee, using typical kokanee lures and flashers or dodgers. I was trolling at the depth where I was seeing schools of kokanee, which I recall was about 30-50 feet down.
In Flaming Gorge, the big surprise for me was when I was jigging for lake trout in about 75 feet of water in Sheep Creek Bay, and caught several lake trout which had stomachs jammed full of crayfish.
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Its ironic that you are from Montana sharing your photos on NWKA. Being from another landlocked state (Wyoming) I appreciate seeing your success. I am working on setting myself up for laketrout jigging for Flaming Gorge. I only picked up one 28" trolling on Labor Day weekend. Need to set up for jigging since the fish are generally down at least 100'.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have produced some videos and brochures which are excellent sources of information about lake trout fishing. The videos are very useful, and the brochures are outstanding. The videos and brochures ("companion PDFs") are available under the "movies" tab on the Mack Days website. Or you can ask Cindy Benson (cindyb@cskt.org) to send you a free set of 2 DVDs and copies of the brochures, although she's pretty tied up now with the Fall Mack Days and may not get back to you soon. There are certainly differences between lake trout fishing on Flathead Lake and lake trout fishing on other lakes. For example, for much of the year, lake trout tend to be a lot deeper in Flathead Lake than they are in many other lakes. In the Spring, 170-240 feet is the most productive depth to jig. But despite those differences, I think you'll find the videos and brochures very helpful.
I have caught lake trout by jigging on Flaming Gorge, but I also caught a surprising number of lake trout when I was downrigger trolling for kokanee, using typical kokanee lures and flashers or dodgers. I was trolling at the depth where I was seeing schools of kokanee, which I recall was about 30-50 feet down.
In Flaming Gorge, the big surprise for me was when I was jigging for lake trout in about 75 feet of water in Sheep Creek Bay, and caught several lake trout which had stomachs jammed full of crayfish.
That's a lot of crawfish. I might want to create a dropper with my fly tying supplies. Could be interesting. Thanks for the information on the videos and Cindy's contact information. Always looking to learn more.