Jackson's Monster Mackinaw

Jackson, Lan and Linh came up Labour Day weekend. Jackson and I went out early on Saturday morning. I dedicated my time in trying new lures: Jointed Rapalas, Swim baits, Flatfish, Kwikfish - you name it, I tried it - and got skunked. Jackson kept with the old faithful lure that we caught the first 100 lakers on.

Jackson caught two fish. The first was a 2 lb'er - he hauled it in so fast that the fish wrapped itself in the line, which I had to cut. The second fish was a nice 4.3 lb'er that gave Jackson a run for his money. Interestingly enough it looks like the size of the spots on a lake trout do not change with age, they just get more spots. Look at the face on Jackson's laker: It has more spots than the 2-3 lb'ers.





Here's Jackson's 2 lb'er:




Hypothesis on Lake Trout Spots: As lake trout grow, their spots don't get bigger, they just get more spots (like the rings on a tree) and that laker spots are unique to each fish, like fingerprints. I'll try to use these to figure out if I've caught the same fish more than once.

Hypothesis on Size of Lure vs Action: I am testing the old adage: Big Bait, Big Fish on the macks in my lake and have been using very large bait sizes. Our lake is not that big, but in the past 25 lb'ers have been hauled up from the depths. I have used huge swim baits that have been getting hits, but I have not been able to hook a fish solid - probably because of a) the large hook size not being able to penetrate their bony mouths, and b) there is only one hook and it is located far in front of the bait, requiring a laker to completely engulf the lure. Jackson caught his 4.3 lb'er with a really small lure, but he was working it very slowly. I usually work my lure extremely fast - so it probably is less appealing to a big fish... and as a result I get more hits, more frequently, but catch smaller fish on average. The 7 lb'er I caught was hooked when I was working the lure extremely slowly.

Lake Trout Fishing Tip: If you don't give lakers a chance to fight (i.e. put too much pressure on them), they will wrap their head in the line so much it will squeeze their eyes and cause injury to themselves. There is a fine balance between too much tension, and too little tension. Set your drag appropriately and loosen it more and more as the fish approaches the boat.


I've heard conflicting stories about whether or not lake trout school together or not. I tried a new area of the lake and found the following on the sonar:

Looks like a bunch of lakers in a school. Everything I have experienced and seen online have been that lake trout are loners and don't group together like bass and other species of fish. Considering the depths of the fish on the sonar, they are most likely lake trout, and not smallmouth. Unfortunately I could not get any of them to bite. Could they be preparing to spawn? If so, it's way too early, as the water temp is still above 20 degrees C. If you take a look at the article in one of my earlier posts on trout spawning you will note that lake trout spawn at the same time, no matter what the temperature. The danger here is that the eggs will hatch too early in the spring and will have nothing to eat and die after they use up their yolk sacs. Hopefully it's just dumb luck that I found a bunch of them.... a sweet spot with 20+ lakers all in the same area. I went back the next day and the "stack" of signals was still there. I tried dropshotting some tubes and Gulp! but it didn't yield anything.



I trolled past my downrigging friend (see last weeks article) - he asked: "Catch any?"

"Two so far today", I replied.

"Lakers?"

"Yep"

(He kind of had a look of disbelief at this point, but that's ok)

"You?"

"Not yet", as we trolled past each other.

I'll keep tracking his progress on how he's doing with his rig.