Deep summer lake trout on light tackle

[Neil McCauley]

It's that time of year again and Lakers are 150+ feet down. Wondering if it's still possible to catch them with light tackle- spinning gear with 10lb fluoro/mono and a heavy jig, or drop shotting with a 2-3 oz weight? Any success with these, or other ideas?

somewhat inspired by this vid

[J Francho]

I use an egg sinker, thread on main line, then swivel, then leader with hook, and some sort of salted minnow.Watch the graph, and drag slowly.  I wouldn't say it's a "light line" setup, but it's usually a medium fast rod with 10-12# line.

[Neil McCauley]

8 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I use an egg sinker, thread on main line, then swivel, then leader with hook, and some sort of salted minnow.Watch the graph, and drag slowly.  I wouldn't say it's a "light line" setup, but it's usually a medium fast rod with 10-12# line.

How deep are you fishing? And what kind of weight egg sinker? Thanks for the help!

Curious to try this, I may try live minnows for the heck of it, wonder if they can survive that far down?

[J Francho]

Just a 1 oz egg sinker you'd get at any tackle shop.  The two lakes I fish are 75-90' deep.

[Crestliner2008]

Why bother with a drop shot when you can get them vertical jigging with 1/2 oz. blade baits in 60'+ water? We use light spinning rigs with 8# test Fireline Crystal for the main line and 6# test fluoro leader. Here's some results of a couple of months ago:

[Dwight Hottle]

I have caught lakers down to 120 feet in July & August. You can fish a heavy spoon by letting it drop to the bottom Then rip it up off bottom & repeat. They usually hit it on the fall but sometimes on the rip. You can also rip it off bottom & bring it up to the surface reeling it at different speeds trying to entice a bite. Trolling with a bead chain sinker or keel weight works also. Crestliner's suggestion of using a blade bait works well. You can use heavier blades including 3/4 or 1oz. I like to use braid for the spoons & blades. You can use braid to an inline swivel with mono or flouro for a leader for abrasion protection. Lakers can be caught using a rope for your mainline so I never worry about them seeing the line.  A white bucktail jig by itself or tipped with a white plastic reaper tail is dynamite. 

I have never used a drop shot for them because direct jigging has always been very effective. My regular lake trout buddy & I have caught hundreds of lakers in the 20lb range up to mid 30lbs using spoons & jigs up in Canada over the years. Another great lake trout fishery near you is the Lake Ontario bar at the tail end of the Niagara river where it dumps into the big lake. You can catch lot's of lakers in the lower river as they go in to spawn in the late fall & hang around till March/April in the spring.

[BassB8Caster]

wow...monsters! Wouldnt mind throwing a spoon, jig or bladed jig down deeeeeppp on slow bass days. Aside from depths, and certain locations on the lake to target to find the lakers (obviously on waters with lake trout)?

[Neil McCauley]

On 7/24/2016 at 8:36 AM, Crestliner2008 said:

Why bother with a drop shot when you can get them vertical jigging with 1/2 oz. blade baits in 60'+ water? We use light spinning rigs with 8# test Fireline Crystal for the main line and 6# test fluoro leader. Here's some results of a couple of months ago:

 

On 7/24/2016 at 10:44 AM, Dwight Hottle said:

I have caught lakers down to 120 feet in July & August. You can fish a heavy spoon by letting it drop to the bottom Then rip it up off bottom & repeat. They usually hit it on the fall but sometimes on the rip. You can also rip it off bottom & bring it up to the surface reeling it at different speeds trying to entice a bite. Trolling with a bead chain sinker or keel weight works also. Crestliner's suggestion of using a blade bait works well. You can use heavier blades including 3/4 or 1oz. I like to use braid for the spoons & blades. You can use braid to an inline swivel with mono or flouro for a leader for abrasion protection. Lakers can be caught using a rope for your mainline so I never worry about them seeing the line.  A white bucktail jig by itself or tipped with a white plastic reaper tail is dynamite. 

I have never used a drop shot for them because direct jigging has always been very effective. My regular lake trout buddy & I have caught hundreds of lakers in the 20lb range up to mid 30lbs using spoons & jigs up in Canada over the years. Another great lake trout fishery near you is the Lake Ontario bar at the tail end of the Niagara river where it dumps into the big lake. You can catch lot's of lakers in the lower river as they go in to spawn in the late fall & hang around till March/April in the spring.

Wow!

How about one of these tungsten jigging spoons?

Right now in LG they seem to be around 110-160'ish in the southern basin.






 

[Crestliner2008]

Tungsten jigging spoons will work too. A bit of a costly approach to a simple method however. Around here, the bottom can be strewn with cut down tree stumps, even at 110'. They cleared several towns and forests for flooding for the reservoir, so loosing baits becomes a problem.

Instead, we use inexpensive blade baits (Barlow's sells them without hooks or hardware) without the trebles; instead rigging them with a single barbless Siwash hook. This minimizes hooking the bottom significantly, but doesn't appear to affect our hook-up, or landing, ratio on the lakers. Here's what this mod looks like:

 

[J Francho]

I like that setup with the siwash hook.  I do the same with my trout spoons.