Pike, kokanee, lake trout

Friday:  Played hooky from work and went spearfishing.  Whacked three pike.

Saturday:  Spent a couple hours kokanee fishing on Placid Lake.  Kept five in the 10-11 inch range, which is not bad for Montana kokanee.

Sunday:  Went lake trout fishing on Lindbergh Lake.  Caught three – an unusually beefy 29 incher, a 26 incher, and an 18 incher.

The 29” lake trout:



The 26 inch lake trout:

Nice Job Man.  It looks like really nice conditions for fishing.  What does it take to catch big lake trout like that?  Trolling pretty deep?  I can't believe how thick the lips are.

What does it take to catch big lake trout like that?  Trolling pretty deep?

Lake trout tend to hang out right on the bottom, so downrigger trolling right above the bottom or jigging on the bottom are good ways to catch lake trout.  I like downrigger trolling, because you can sweep through an area in search of lake trout, whereas jigging requires you to keep your kayak positioned right over what may be a pretty small group of lake trout. 

While lake trout often hang out in real deep water, in the last month or so I've been catching most of my lake trout in 30-50 feet of water.  As water temperatures increase in August, they may go deeper.

Cool.  What do you troll for those, big plugs?  I think the Kokanee here in Oregon must be a little better, in my experience they tend to be 13"-15".

I troll a variety of kinds of lures: big flatfish or Kwikfish lures, Rapalla-type lures, Big flexible baits on a pair of treble hooks with some cut bait behind a dodger, etc.  Because I like to troll very close to the bottom, I prefer lures which float, so if I turn or slow up my kayak the lure won't fall to the bottom and risk getting snagged.  You don't need to worry about using a lure which is too big, but I've caught plenty of lake trout on pretty small rapalla type lures.

Excellent report!!