I have been continuing to diversify my species on Pokegama in the past week; and not because the walleyes aren’t biting but because I needed a change of pace from the last two months of nothing but walleyes. So tonight my neighbor, my two girls and I went out in search of Lake Trout on Pokegama. Now to be honest I am not much of a trout fisherman other than a few times stream fishing in South Dakota and 3 times on a pit lake north of Grand Rapids, so I a pretty much a newbie to this type of fishing. Besides that I figure it would keep the girls entertained better than walleye fishing because they could drive the boat while we were fishing.
Our tactic tonight was downriggers and planar boards, one downrigger with a silver crodile set at 50 FOW, one with purple perch glass rap set set 40 FOW. The planar board were 30 feet from the boat each with a 2oz weight clipped to the line with a 20 foot leader with a flasher, one had a silver spoon 120 ft of line from the baord and the other with some octopus type rig my neighbor uses in Canada with 80 ft of line from the board.
We started trolling in 90 FOW water looking for the bait fish and following the break line coming off the shore. As we trolled down the shoreline I notice a deep point that came up to 60 FOW. As we came up and over the we marked a few fish and a lot of bait around 40 FOW, and the downrigger with the glass rap poppep with a nice 3 lb laker. The best part was having the girls with when we caught the fish because they had never seen a fish like this before and thats when the questions began. “Do those fish bite?” “If we jumped in here would they try to eat us?” “Are these fish bigger than northerns?”
After resetting the downrigging we continued down the shorelined turned around for another pass to where we had marked the fish. As we neared the same point the rigger with the glass rap popped again. This time with a nice 5-6 lb lake trout. We made a couple more passes around the point with no luck and continued down the shoreline before the girls decided it was time to go swimming.
Now as I said before I am not much for a trout fisherman but for 2 hours of trolling on a lake really not known for lake trout I think two fish was a pretty good night. I am excited to get out and give it another try or head to Caribou Lake north of Grand Rapids to try it on a lake known for its trout. Who knows I may give up walleye fishing and start to target lakers, well probably not but it could happen!!!
Look at the raft of loons hovering over a nice pod of baitfish in about 80 FOW
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Mike, great job in diversifying.
I think as we look past our roots and explore other presentations and species, we can learn a lot more. Girls looked like they had a great time also! 
Well just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke we went out Lake Trout fishing again last night, within 15 minutes we pulled a 28″ Walleye in 75 fow 40′ down. We caught two more lakers all at 40′ down in varying depths of water. All in all 2 1/1 hours of fishing we caught 2 lake trout and a nice walleye. I would say it was a pretty fair night of fishing.
Mike… that’s a tank walleye and what I call a delightful “accident.” How’s the pike bite? Have you seen the pikers move out into open water to chase the smelt too?
I have been marking the Pike on the graph but we haven’t caught any yet which is suprising. Although in past we have caught more pike in shallow water, and by shallow I mean 40 to 60 FOW with the riggers set between 35 and 40. We have been trolling in 65 to 110 FOW now and I have been marking pike between 20 and 30 down in 65 to 75 FOW water near the breaks. The baitfish have been holding pretty steady from 35 to 50 FOW. Its been fun and a nice change of pace. I did find an unknown deepwater hump that comes up to 50′ in the middle of no man’s land that was hold a ton of walleyes just haven’t had the opportunity to try for them yet nor do I really want to try for fear they would all die coming from that depth; but its on my to do list in the upcoming weeks.
Hi Mike:
Detailed information that will prove useful as always! Thanks for sharing your findings. These are the types of outings I think we all love. In our wheelhouse, yet different enough to keep it interesting. Great to see that the walleyes are still eating well too!
Joel