best lake trout lures & techniques

[robert1965]

what lures are a must to have. this is my first time trying for lakers, I will be on L.O.W. white fish bay this week, any advice would be greatly appreciated thanx.

[caseymcq]

Check out the BWCAW-Duluth-Ely-Range There are a lot of posts with a ton of information on the subject.

Top Five Laker Lures? (for inland ice)

Inland Lake Trout Gear & Tactics

I am not 100% sure but I think White Fish Bay is single barbless hook with artificial bait so some of the lures and suggestions may not be totally applicable to your situation but it may give you some ideas.

[WalleyesWest]

robert

I would suggest gulp and annything white. Yes to the no bait all artificial up on white fish. You can use trebles as long as it is one peice bait example (shad rap, Bucktail with treble trailer). Good luck I would serously look at dogpaw NE of white fish you can use bait there.

[LeeMB]

4" or 5" white tube jigs would be my number 1 choice.

[benelli_dude2002]

4" or 5" white tube jigs would be my number 1 choice.

exactly what I was going to suggest and maybe some flashy spoons. And Dogpaw and Caviar ( flows into Dogaw ) have always been a favorite for me. Havent been up there yet this winter but I plan on it. Good luck

p.s Robert1965 where are you staying at up there?

[superbee]

Fishing in 40-70 fow and jigging at 20-30 fow with 4" white or glow tubes and 3/8 jig. If I get chasers that won't go, then just let the jig sit still, don't move it until you get a trout coming up to to it. Don't move it until they just about there. Sometimes, don't even move it when they are coming, just hold on tight and wait for them to smack it. I never use bait and rarely don't catch a bunch of trout. Bait is just a pain and I outfish tip ups day in and day out. It takes alot of practice and fishing with people that fish lakers frequently is definately a big help if you are not used to fishing them.

[delcecchi]

Sonars work pretty good in the spring. I wonder how they would work through the ice. drop to bottom, reel up to surface. repeat.

[Steve Foss]

They work great, Del. Cicadas too.

[Christopher Quast]

We found last year that up on Gunflint the 1/2 ounce Chartuese Northland Whistler jigs worked the best for us, tipped with a rainbow chub. We tried airplane jigs, jigging shad raps and buckshot spoons and hands down the Whistler Jig won by far and when they hit it they hit it hard everytime...

Steve, do you have better luck up that way with or without bait and have you tried the tube jig thing? Does it work for you and if so how do you fish them?

[MuntzAngling]

They work great, Del. Cicadas too.

Steve, the blade baits, right. I love them in the summer months. I have tried these vertically and they tend to hang up on the line on the way down. Do you tweak them or drop them a certain way? If you use cut bait, which hook do you use to put it on?

-Andy

[Steve Foss]

CQ, I used the 4- and 5-inch tubes on Burntside my first winter. I'd read the whole In-Fisherman tube bait for laker thing and was all hot on them. But I gave up on them for Bside after I had lakers coming in hot all over them and then not biting. I tried that for a frustrating morning and then downsized to a No. 7 jigging Rap and started icing fish. It's tough to catch the 2- 3-lb Burntside eaters on big lures. It can be done, but the vast majority of eater-sized lakers turn away from lures that big on Bside, but I've found the bigger fish also hit the smaller lures. I think that's more a Bside characteristic, though, because I've done well with bigger baits for eaters on a couple other laker lakes. I do think it's a good idea to have some smaller walleye sized offerings anytime you go for lakers, no matter what the water, because some days it just seems it takes a small morsel to unlock their jaws.

SS, I never tip a bladebait with meat. The whole attraction is the rapid vibration/thump you get when you rip them up two feet, and tipping deadens the action a bit. If I was going to tip, I'd tip the front treble, since tipping the rear treble would deaden the action even more.

I've only used the sonars a few times. I use the cicadas a lot more and haven't had them foul too much. I don't let them drop free and fast though, but generally control the drop, so that might be why they don't often foul for me.

[lakerunner]

Steve--I'll second you on the tube jigs. I tried them for the first time Sunday while I was out on B'side. I had several just fly in, take a look at leave. I tried this several times and everytime I put a tube down, within 2 minutes I had one coming in. Drop the orange and chrome jigging rap, and I'd hook them.

[superbee]

That sounds like a strange lake. 2-3# ers will hammer a 4" tube up here. Is the main bait forage on the lake all smaller baitfish? What size lead are you using in the tubes? I like 3/8 oz for a slow drop, but sometimesdropping down to a 1/4 oz can trigger them to strike. Might be worth trying.

[Steve Foss]

Superbee: I used a variety of weights in the tubes for slower and faster drops. I've gone back to them now and then over the last six years to just check up and see if my first impressions were accurate, and it still has held true. I know 4- and 5-inch tubes work on eaters in lots and lots of laker lakes.

Burntside's primary forage is smelt. There are huge numbers of them, and they do not run large. I've caught many smelt from 4 to 7 inches on smaller laker lures, and I've cleaned many an eater laker that has a bunch of 4- to 5-inch smelt in the gut, so I know they eat them. Eaters also are not shy about slamming a 5-inch dead cisco on a tip-up, and that's a bigger profile than a 5-inch smelt.

My guess is that those size tubes offer a much bigger profile or thump or signature or whatever, and that might be a put-off because it feels to the fish like it's even a bigger bait.

That's just all guess, however.

[superbee]

Some lakes just have them strange quirks. A few lakes up here, I can catch a laker on glow tubes and the lakes are all interconnected. The tube that works best on the one lake, I can't buy a fish on the rest of the system.

[Steve Foss]

Yeah, no matter what works on your home lake, ya gotta experiment and listen to the lake you're on.

[ICE_KING]

Just got a bigger jigging rap today in white with a hint of chartruese. For seven bucks my knot better hold! How you guys do using them things any way? Tip em with smelt/ciscoe or plain???

[KG243]

If you catch a smelt and kill it can you use it for bait????

[Mike Stark]

yep.

you can tip them with a little chunk of cisco or minow head. dont put too big a chunk on it will mess up the action of the lure.

watch how the lure moves under the ice...it will give you a good idea of how to jig it.

lift the rod fast and big to get them in

jiggle it to get them to bite

[KG243]

can you use thw whole thing on a tip-up?

[Steve Foss]

KG, yes, you can use the whole thing. No need to kill it. Best tip-up bait I've ever used is a live smelt.

I don't tip my jigging raps and other swimming lures like Chubby Darters. I cut off the front and rear hooks of the Raps (they are liabilities because they catch so often on the bottom of the hole) and upsize the center treble one size. I don't tip them because it deadens the action somewhat.

I used to tip all my lures, but since I quit doing that my catch rate has not dropped at all, and it's a lot simpler not to have to keep slicing up pieces of bait.

But lots of guys swear by tipped lures, like I used to. My feeling is action is more important than scent to trigger lakers. Some say scent is more important, and that a tipped lure will outproduce an untipped lure when the fish are finicky. I haven't found that to be true, but that's just me.

Really, it's a matter of which you are more confident with, because confidence has a lot to do with jigging success.