Hey, I’m trying something to spice up my laker game. I just got into fly fishing. So I was wondering if anyone else has tried a fly reel for ice lakers, I so do you have any tips for light tackle for the finesse style presentation.
Hey, I’m trying something to spice up my laker game. I just got into fly fishing. So I was wondering if anyone else has tried a fly reel for ice lakers, I so do you have any tips for light tackle for the finesse style presentation.
I’ll be the first to offer that there’s no wrong way to catch a fish but I wouldn’t use a fly reel for laker fishing. Knowing how much a laker likes to chase a bait up and down in the water column at speeds that approach “as fast as you can turn the handle on a spinning reel” I just don’t think a 1:1 fly reel is the right tool for that job.
Agree with James 100%. I might add too that I believe you should go as heave as your presentation allows. I have caught a few lakers that wouldn’t go back down due to the intense fight. They basically wore themselves out.
I always use ultra heavy laker geared equipment. Lighter equipment would only lessen the probability of a successful release.
Thanks for the feedback guys. Mabey I’ll save the fly reel for little rainbows. Do you guys have any recommendations on good quality hair jigs, if so what weight is the best.
Where are you located? What bodies of water do you plan to fish? What depths?
I mainly fish Lake Superior when the opportunity arises. Depths of 200′ or more aren’t out of the question. Just need to make sure we’re comparing apples to apples.
I’m located in central Ontario in a town called Haliburton. We usually fish between 25-80ft of water. Sometimes we go down to lake simco. And jig pretty deep but usually up here we fish pretty shallow around 25ft deep.
Many yrs ago, I watched an episode of Butch Furtman out of Duluth, and he was jigging lakers on superior with a fly reel on his rod. I thought that if Butch was doing it, it was probably worth a try. I fish Ontario waters a lot, so my fishing is a helluva lot shallower than what BF was fishing on Lake Superior. All I can say is that a fly reel for lake trout fishing is about on par with an old school wrap up stick with the spike on the end of it. Maybe it would be different for you, but for this guy, it was useless.
Having to strip line out by hand to get the jig down and then having the SLOW retrieval made playing the up-and-down game to get lakers to commit a real chore. Get a decent reel, lube it with hot sauce, and go catch some fish. Leave the fly reel for flatlining some summer fish.
Just my $0.02. T
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