Been 20+ years

Heading back to Sioux Lookout this year for a week at the end of July, First week of August. Staying at Deer Path Lodge on Minnetaki. Been 20 years or so since I have been there.

Will be fishing Lac Seul or Lost Lake for walleyes and Minnetaki for Lake Trout. Excited to hit the lakers again, but need to upgrade the tackle assorment on these.
Any recommendations for lake trout jigs? Will be vertical fishing them. Do have down riggers but not sure we will mess around trolling them.

Is there any mapping chips available or mapping downloads? Can run any format as we have Garmin and Humminbird electronics. Just trying to buy whichever is best currently.

Best place to order bait from? Will be going up through Fort Frances to 502 to dryden to 72 to sioux lookout route. Assume the leeches are on the small side still?

I see we need an Ontario Outdoors card? Can that just be purchased when we purchase our license?

Looking forward to getting back to some old memories soon.

I already had an outdoor card, but my buddy got his and we bought our licenses at the Great Bear, just before 502, a couple weeks ago. Can’t really help with bait or mapping recommendations. I don’t know much about jigging lakers, either.

ryan hunt wrote:

I see we need an Ontario Outdoors card? Can that just be purchased when we purchase our license?

I have never fished for lakers so no help there. The outdoors card should be able to be purchased with the license, unless I’m wrong I thought it was a Canada thing not a province thing.

Search “fishing trout in Canada” on YouTube lots of info.

Lake Trout haven’t changed still 3-4″ white tube jigs a few spoons like litle cleo and some type of rattle bait. If you can’t catch them on one of those there not there.

I don’t fish lake trout much when they are in deep water, But I’d also have some paddletails in various sizes. A buddy of mine fished Wollaston Lake last year and they caught some GIANT lake trout on Large paddle tails while vertically Jigging.

Appreciate all the information! Will post back how it all goes next month

The way we always “jigged” for lake trout (on a different lake in Manitoba) was just a bucktail jig with a strip of sucker meat on it held just out of the mud off the bottom, no movement. This was in about 105ft of water and I don’t remember the size of the jig exactly, 1.5oz maybe, something that will get down there and keep your line tight. Also needed to have a sturdy hook, regular wire hooks like on a 1oz walleye jig would get mangled. You’d just feel tiny taps when a trout picked it up and then you’d set the hook and start cranking. This was the way taught to us by a group of guys that did nothing but lake trout fish.

For the last few years the Boundary Waters Journal has had some great articles about fishing for lake trout. Some brothers have modified some large lipless crankbaits to include bottom spinners and feathers. The are producing some great results and the editor of the magazine now says after 3 years of fishing these lures he would not go without them. Klos Bros lipless trout lures. I am sure you can google them and find them. Pretty costly at $75 for 3 lures.

I bought my outdoor card and license on line

John Rasmussen wrote:

I have never fished for lakers so no help there. The outdoors card should be able to be purchased with the license, unless I’m wrong I thought it was a Canada thing not a province thing.

I will preface this by saying that I have only fished in Ontario, but I think the Outdoors card is specific to Ontario. Perhaps other provinces have similar, but my card clearly says Ontario on it.

CaptainMusky wrote:

I will preface this by saying that I have only fished in Ontario, but I think the Outdoors card is specific to Ontario. Perhaps other provinces have similar, but my card clearly says Ontario on it.

Me too so I guess I’m not sure on it then.

Trip was amazing. Thank you all for the replies. Everything went smooth

Way more anglers up there fishing than what I recalled. Walleye fishing was good, but the fish definitely seemed to be more pressured than what I recall. Definitely not a complaint, but wow was there a lot of boats out and about. Almost felt like MN at times.

Lake Trout fishing was beyond anything I have done before. We boated 20 fish from 23 to 31″ in 3.5 hours one morning. 11 minute per fish average. Just amazing. Went with the standard tubes and swim jigs the first day, but the fish were feeding on small baitfish, so they would chase but not commit. Downsized the next couple times out to blade baits and it was unreal.

Few pics of the trout.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_7751-002.jpg
   

2. 

   IMG_7740-002.jpg
   

3. 

   IMG_7747-002.jpg
   

4. 

   FB_IMG_1722954130441-002.jpg
   

5. 

   FB_IMG_1722954149799-002.jpg
   

Glad it worked out. Nice fish!