Fort Peck Montana Lake Trout

[jjdubsoutdoors]

Drove 16 hours, 1000 miles from Wisconsin to our destination Fort Peck Lake Montana. Our goal was to catch lake trout ice fishing. It wasn't more than 10 minutes into dropping lines in the water that we already had two hookups and one lake trout on the ice. Throughout the day we had steady action pulling lake trout through the ice. Eddie from Lakeridge Motel was super helpful in setting us up on general areas where to go, baits, and techniques. Stay tuned for Episodes Two and Three, the lake trout continued to get bigger each day!

 

This day we set up on a nice 40-50 foot hump surrounded by deeper 70-80 foot water. Most of them were caught on either big spoons or big jigs with tubes, largo shad, or hair jigs. If you get the chance to ever make it out there, it is definitely a neat lake to check out for some amazing opportunity to catch giant lakers, walleye, and pike. Unfortunately we never made it around to targeting walleye or pike too much, but a few weeks ago a guy pulled up a 34" 16# walleye further up river. What a neat fishery.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i74ShAZoSZg

Edited February 23, 2019 by jjdubsoutdoors

[leech~~]

Was going to say why not just go to Canada, but it looks like you guys did pretty well for the long drive. How much ice did you have?

[jjdubsoutdoors]

We plan on going to Canada next year! Boy, ice was super variable. Anywhere from 3"-15" so we really had to be careful and check as we went. I'm sure by now you could go most places with a snowmobile, but still gotta be careful.

[Wanderer]

Sounds like a great trip @jjdubsoutdoors!  Kinda what I was hoping to hear about the lake.  I’ll definitely watch episode 2 and 3.

 

I had loose plans with some friends to go out there in January but we called it off due to NO ice on the part of the lake we were planning to go to and iffy ice in other areas.  When I called the marina, the owner said he had guys launching their boats yet so bring that instead of ATVs or sleds!

[jjdubsoutdoors]

Wanderer, we were originally supposed to go near the end of January but ended up delaying it a few weeks. We weren't able to explore the lake as much as we wanted, but just couldn't wait anymore. Still ended up to be a pretty good trip(minus a few misfortunes). Someday we will definitely go back. Hopefully next winter they have better ice making weather and you can make the trip! If you need any tips feel free to reach out to me!

[minky]

Sounds like you had an awesome trip!