Will Roseberg with a 42″ lake trout – not bad for his first time!
This past weekend I had the chance to get out of the office and get out on the water with a couple good friends – Will Roseberg and Calvin Svihel. Our destination was Lake Superior and our plan was to spend the weekend chasing lake trout. Neither Cal or Will had fished lake trout on Superior on open water before so this trip would be doubly fun for me as it is always a blast to help get someone connected to a big laker and watch them fight a big one for 10 – 20 minutes or more!
Our plan was to head up the North Shore and launch out of Grand Portage. The forecast for the weekend looked fantastic for Saturday with light winds and cloudy conditions while Sunday looked a bit more challenging with a chance for more wind and, of course, bigger waves. We were committed to spending the weekend fishing hard with the goal of finding fishing on Saturday using more traditional trolling patterns so we could attempt to jig some of those fish up on Sunday using lighter spinning gear. More on that later…
We started trolling in 50 to 60 feet of water in an area that had produced some great fish for us in the past. We ran spoons on 4, 5 and 6 colors of Sufix 832 segmented leadcore behind boards to get our baits off to the side of the boat to avoid spooking. At the start of our trip we headed immediately to an area that had produced some big fish in the past but on this trip our confidence areas were devoid of adult-sized lakers and almost overrun with runts. Board after board went back only to produce yet another 2 – 4 lb laker… that’s just not what we were looking for! Water temps were what I would consider “prime-perfect” at 54 – 57 degrees. The fish should have been holding at these depths… but they weren’t.
This forced us to broaden the search area by quite a bit which sent us out into deeper water in the hopes of locating some bigger fish. Those 4 and 5 color rods were replaced with 6, 7 and 8 color rods and the boat was steered out to 70 – 90 feet of water off the shoreline break. It didn’t take long to find pods of bigger lake trout will to come up off the bottom 20 – 40 feet to smack our spoons dancing overhead.
This is what lake trout fishing is all about – thumb on the spool trying to keep the line from going out while you LIFT the fish!
Will put one of the first big trout in the boat when he tied into a giant 42″ laker that would be our biggest fish for the trip. One of the reasons I love fishing Lake Superior is the chance to tie into a true giant is always a possibility and on this day Will’s number got drawn! This particular fish took Will for the ride of his life giving Cal and I the time to clear all rods… and make a sandwhich, answer emails and pick up the boat! Both Cal and I were giving Will a hard time about taking so long but when it comes to fighting a big laker, there’s just no hurrying the process along. In my opinion a big laker is one of the best fighting fish in fresh water and this particular fish didn’t hit the bottom of the net for over 20 minutes after hooking up leaving Will’s arms worn out and burning after everything was all said and done. Will told me he had always wanted to get a big laker mounted at the start of the trip but when it came time to make the call with this fish Will released it without hesitation and plans to do a replica mount in the future.
Our trolling speeds were 2.2 – 2.5 MPH which is a bit faster than I normally run. Another thing we noticed was that the fish, regardless of size, wanted BIG spoons. We caught almost all our fish on 5″ 3/4″ spoons while smaller versions in the same color patterns were being ignored. The thing I find most interesting is that some of the fish caught were throwing up small 1.5 – 2 inch long herring in large numbers. While the fish were obviously gorging on small baitfish they wanted nothing to do with smaller spoons. Why? I have no idea. But I do know that if you weren’t running the bigger spoons you weren’t getting bit.
Color selection was very specific as well. When it was cloudy the fish keyed on spoons with a silver blank painted dark metallic blue with a hint of chartreuse on the nose. When the sun came out the fish wanted a silver blank with gold and fluorescent orange paint. As long as we had those colors in the mix we caught fish. All of our go-to patterns from trips past seemed to be ignored.
Cal is show here with his first fish of the trip once we got away from the runts!
Our fishing on Saturday ended around 6 PM so we could get to shore in time to grill up some steaks and watch the sun set. Our plan for Sunday AM was to return to the spots we found the day prior and see if we couldn’t get some fish to go on spinning gear.
The winds picked up and would blow out of the north – north east all day on Sunday kicking up 2′ – 4′ waves from start to finish. Thankfully I had remembered to pack a giant drift sock as this simple device would prove to be invaluable to our jigging fishing efforts. Once deployed the drift socks slowed down our drift speed to 0.4 MPH which was perfect for presenting the 1.5 oz. jigs and spoons we were fishing.
Will has one in the boat while Cal is figthing a double. Doubles and even triples are common once you get things dialed in.
Jig fishing lakers on Superior is an amazing amount of fun when you’re on the fish and incredibly frustrating when you’re not. With all that water to hunt and peck through finding the fish is the main challenge. Thankfully once you find the fish lake trout are generally pretty aggressive and very willing to eat a jig danced in front of their face. I got on the board first with a nice 10# laker on a 1.5 oz. jig and white paddle tail. Cal followed my fish up with a 6# and 12# laker caught on a Williamson Gomuku Spoon in silver blue. For the next 45 minutes or so we had some fast action on fish up to 15 – 18 lbs… and then the fish moved and the bite died just as quickly as it started.
We did make attempts to relocate those fish but after an hour and a half of looking we threw in the towel and decided it was time to head for home. While catching a laker on a jig rod is one of the most fun things you can experience as an angler trying to put that pattern to work on Superior is full of highs and lows. When you’re on the fish, you’re on top of the world. When they move, you’ve got 20.3 million acres of water to deal with!
With a little luck I’ll be able to get back up on the big lake in 3 – 4 weeks for another go-round with the big trout. If you make it out yourself in the coming weeks I’d love to hear how you’re doing. Those fishing reports definitely help plan the next trip!