Lakers

mewolf1

mewolf1

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2005
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Any info anybody has on fishin Lakers through the ice would be much appreciated. Headin up to the arrowhead country of MN in a couple of weeks to fish with my son who is living up there, but as to techniques??? I've only read postings. In summer, on a stream I'm deadly on trout;) but Lakers are a bit of a mystery to me.
 
I haven't fished them either but what I have seen on MN produced fishing shows they use thin jigging spoons tipped with fatheads or airplane jigs tipped again with fatheads. Seems like they start on the bottom and jig their way up. Are you taking in any electronics? That might beat jigging all day on dry holes. In those lakes I would jig with a pole for the lakers and set a tip up per person for northerns....pickled northerns are wonderful.
 
That's just where I'm at on all counts. Ya , the Vexlar is comin, bout the only thing besides my GPS my kid did'nt take up already:D
Seems alot of guys use white tubes with success, at least it's a recurring theme. My favorite winter jig is the Rap by far. I've caught many pounds of Walleye on them. I'm pretty Jazzed for the trip, especially after my boy sends me this today.:eek::D

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It's the only one he caught, but he's gettin a fix on'em.:thumbup:
 
Nice fish, wrap that up in several layers of foil with dill in the pocket and a pat of butter and give it some time in the oven until you smell dill and wow are those tasty.
 
I have always wanted to go after lake trout in winter. Must be a pretty deep lake, huh? Will you be in the BWCA?
 
comoha said:
I have always wanted to go after lake trout in winter. Must be a pretty deep lake, huh? Will you be in the BWCA?
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No BWCA, sadly, unless we are on Snowbank and walk across the line, but Bdub is where I've always wanted to go in after Trout. Yes they are deep,80-120'. Some lakes have Brookies.
I've been working on a small 12' Yurt design for packing in and hot tenting, stove and all. Reality says it won't happen this year, but next. I'll just have to sleep in the house this year. As an aside, seems like the MN boys might need to make an outting.:D
 
No, sorry. I am gearing up to do some perch\whitefish through the ice soon though.

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Always had great luck jigging with a Williams Wabler a couple of feet off of the bottom. Live minnows even better, Shiners with a single hook through the back behind the dorsal fin to keep it alive and swimming as long as possible. I'll usually set one line with a minnow in one hole, and jig with a spoon in another.

I wind 8-10lb mono on end-notched paint sticks with a nail and elastic band to hold them on my tip-ups, nothing fancy but works great.

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mckrob said:
Always had great luck jigging with a Williams Wabler a couple of feet off of the bottom. Live minnows even better, Shiners with a single hook through the back behind the dorsal fin to keep it alive and swimming as long as possible. I'll usually set one line with a minnow in one hole, and jig with a spoon in another.

I wind 8-10lb mono on end-notched paint sticks with a nail and elastic band to hold them on my tip-ups, nothing fancy but works great.

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Nice, and thanks. I plan on setting a tip-up with a Cisco, and jigging with another. I'm loaded and ready with Tubes, Swedish Pimples, and Rapalla jigs.
 
mewolf1 said:
Apicture is worth a thousand words.:D
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:D On multiple levels. The warden and I were on a teaching contract in the far north on an isolated, fly in, northern reserve. This is a shot of the teacherage that we lived in while there. I pulled the breasts off of a lot of Ptarmagan in that room.
 
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KrisNZ said:
Nice looking fish, what are they, trout?, Kris
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I was taken by a northern Indian guide on a fall laker trip. The water was crystal clear and I could see the rocky shoal, or submerged island about ten feet down. I also saw lakers moving back and forth in every direction. I caught lake trout on every cast for a couple of hours. Once in a blue moon a laker would shake the hook off and I just kept realing because another would hit the spoon for a hook set. It was insane fishing. The old Indian guide only took a little money for gas. These fish were tossed into his fish tubs and look a bit scruffy. He kept his for his dogs.
 
I love fishing for Lakers mainly in the spring summer and fall, most have been from 30 to 80 feet down. The Reservoirs that have them around my area do not allow ice fishing due to severe water dropping below the ice, at least thats their excuse. Trolling spoons or casting works best were I am at. Jigging silver/blue castmaster spoons off the bottom has worked well too as had gold/orange crocodile lures.
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I have an older type of sounder that tells you which colors work best at a spefic depth, has helped in the past, found out that at deeper depths 40 - 100 feet blue, purple and black are better than brighter colors which seem to work better from surface to 30 feet. It will be another tool in your toolbelt. I have always like to jig or put my tilts off of points or drop offs and always one close to shore. 4 tilts with shiners and my jigging rod (we can only have 5 hooks in the water here for icefishing), I use Swedish pimples jigging for trout, pickeral, bass, perch etc... If you have not tried them you should as they work great.
I have good luck with the plain nickel or hammered nickel model. have a look.... http://www.swedishpimple.com/HTML/swedishpimple/index.html
 
First, get a GOOD flasher!!! Vexilar is VERY hard to beat, as they know what they're doing with a flasher (not too powerful as to put off the fish like the Humminbird and Lowrance units can and often do). The unit mentioned above is EXCELLENT!!! :thumbup:

I cannot recommend PK Spoons more!!! A guy in our club introduced them to us, and they flat WORK! :eek: This is a picture of my buddy's from yesterday evening (I couldn't go with him b/c it was my wife's b-day). Yeah, it is a Walleye in this case (20" :cool:) , but these spoons and jigging techniques work just the same with Lakers. The one below is 1/2 oz. in the "Pearl Chartreuse" color (we also have good luck on the "Red Dot" colors).

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Tight lines!!! -Jared.
 
My boy has dialed in on some Brookies! Laker chasin at least one day, Splake another, but goin after the Brookies first:D
15,14,13 in an hour. Hooked and lost one about 18.

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