Looking for Lakers

[BigTipUp]

When I was a little boy my father and grandfather took me fishing somewhere in Canada for lake trout. My grandfather is long past and my father was killed in the war. My mother can't remember the name of the place we went but she is certain that it was on Lake of the Woods somewhere.

Well we all know how big that lake is. She also thought it was somewhere within 4 hours of the states.

Now I would like to take my son on a Laker hunt but I don't have any ideas where to start. Any info would be great, closer to the US/Canada boarder would be best. Thank you

BTU

[fisherking01]

There are several options for lakers in Ontario, Check the archives for threads on lakers. A few of the options for Lake of the woods would be the bays around sioux narrows. Whitefish bay being the most popular to my knowledge. There are many spots to try that are productive. I got a report from a friend with a cabin on the lake and he said they are catching a few. From my recent experiences (last couple of years) the fishing has tended to be slow, with expectations of maybe 6 fish a day, that varies of course from 0 to ??? Lodging is another issue, you can check the threads on sioux narrows lodging, there is some good info on these. As I know the motel in sioux narrows closed so it has cut down our trips the last 2 years. There are a number of places to stay though. We are planning a trip Feb 17-21, will be staying on the lake, lucky to get in on the location we have.

Another location for lakers is Kakagi (Crow lake), It is closer and also a popular winter destinstion of Lake trout fishermen. I beleive you can use live bait on Crow, Whitefish bay is barbless and artificial only in the winter.

[igotem]

BigTipUp

Lake of the Woods does indeed have some great lake trout fishing. Whitefish Bay near Sioux Narrows is great and is easily accessible. Sioux Narrows is about 90 miles from Int'l Falls, MN. I just returned from there a week ago and fishing was decent, but size was below average for us. Most fish we caught were in the 3#-5# range and we only caught one over 10#. Typically we catch several in the 10# - 20# range in Whitefish Bay. Plenty of good fight in those smaller fish though!

Get a good map and move around a lot. We fish a lot of areas, mostly were you have a sharp break or some kind of midlake reef. We mark and/or catch fish in most of these types of areas we stop at. If we don't get any biters in the first half hour, we generally move. If you get on a good area, you can hunker down and fish and you'll get fish on and off, but we like to move in and catch any active fish then move on.

There is also a lot of other great trout lakes in the area, but I've mostly fished LOW myself.

igotem

[fisherking01]

Igotem, how was the ice? Snowmobile travel only?

[igotem]

Ice was 8" - 12" everywhere we went. There were a few areas of slush, but with the cooler weather on Sat. and Sun. most of those areas froze up. We always travel by snowmobile when we are up there. Snow depth wasn't bad so you could have gotten around with a four wheeler at that time. I've never seen vehicles out there, but we only fish up there once a year usually in early January. The rest of the year I fish a lot of other lakes that require snowmobiles to get to.

igotem

[fisherking01]

yep, only drove the pickups on the lake two years and we've been going up for 20. thanks for the report!