Lake Trout Fishing gets Tough

So after my 1st fish, I thought it would be pretty easy to go out there and just keep catching (and releasing) them. Not so. As soon as it got a little warmer the lakers headed into deeper water. I bought a depth-finder to map out the contours of the lake and still couldn't see the fish properly. We have:

a) A canoe (not suitable for trolling)
b) An old 50 year old leaky 12-foot aluminium boat
c) A 16 ft-100 HP ski boat

The aluminium boat leaked pretty badly so I decided to convert my ski-boat to a fishing boat by adding an electric motor to the transom. I'm sure it was a pretty hilarious sight to the other cottagers on the lake... "Look at that Chinese guy, fishing out of a ski-boat --- Idiot." - they must have thought. On the July 4th weekend in 2006 there were a slew of kids (at least 15 of them) swimming from the south end of the bay over to Ken's cottage on the south side. I was trolling in my "fish-n-ski" boat with a few friends and the kids were actually out pacing us by swimming. I still remember the comment: "Look! We're faster than the boat!". Too funny.

The first time I went out there and trolled with my "fish-n-ski" boat, I actually hooked into a lake trout, but alas, it got away. I didn't even get to see the fish. This happened to me at least a dozen times. Something was up. I was clearly doing something wrong. I'm no fishing rookie, I've played and landed 30-lb Salmon before up the Ganaraska River on tiny single egg hooks and noodle rods with 6 lb test. What the heck was I doing wrong? Not only was I not able to land them, I was also frequently not able to set the hook properly when a strike occured.

I tried many different hooks. Treble hooks, single hooks, big hooks, small hooks. To no avail. I could hook them, but I just couldn't land them. They would ALWAYS shake the hook. I spoke to my neighbor Mike and he told me the legendary fisherman beside us in the 3rd bay - Al used a spoon with a treble-hook with the 3rd hook crimped off. I tried this, but it still didn't help.