Lake Trout Fishing!
Spring Lake Trout Fishing
For experienced Trout Fishing anglers spring and fall are commonly considered the worst time of year to catch lake trout. Why because trout will be spread all over the lake and maybe 10% of them will be within 10 feet of water. So the expereinced fisherman will tell you it's more like winning the lottery than a matter of technique. But then again here we are with a Trout for dinner!
In the summer, lake trout are concentrated in the deep holes or are concentrated just above the thermocline (depending on the size of the lake) and are in fact 100 times easier to catch with the right techniques. All you need is 6 pound test line, a walleye stick, a 1 or 2 oz weight and some swivels. For more inforamtion on Light tackle Trout Fihing techniques see this reproduced article by Gary Skrzek. Thanks Gary for the contribution on your experiences of fishing in the Ogoki River area.
It's May 26 and the Walleye in the Ogoki River has just started. Paul Boucher, the owner of Ogoki Frontier, is a great wealth of fishing tips about what types of fishing will work, what type of bait to use, where to try and when to try. Today he had suggested our group try the rapids near the camp.
I really wanted to try Lake Trout fishing and Paul had said there are only two times when you can do that; spring and in the fall as the Trout aren't settled in Whiteclay's deeper waters like in summer.
Lake Trout are very temperature dependant and the cold spring we had this year coupled with the early Victoria Day Weekend has meant that one group came in before the fish really started to bite. We were lucky booking the second weekend because everything was really comming to life in the shallows with the more recent sun and rain.
Ask us a question now: fishing@ogokifrontier.com
Close to the Whiteclay West Camp about 2 miles up the Ogoki River at the first rapids was where we had the lucky Lake Trout strike. We were fishing for Walleye and Northern Pike and were pulling them in like crazy when this beautiful Lake Trout grabbed Chuck's line.
We were jig fishing just below the rapids in about 8 feet of water with a 1/4oz yellow jig when totally by surprise he caught the first Lake Trout of the season.
Slabbed into steaks and BBQ'd, our gang of 5 enjoyed this delicious 28 inch Lake Trout.
If your interested in catching Lake Trout I would strongly recommend Whiteclay Lake in the summer and the Ogoki River in the spring and fall.
Cold; makes for healthy Lake Trout
Are lake trout are a deep-water fish? During the summer this is certainly true as the only customers catching them are fishing the deep holes in the lakes of the Ogoki system, but recent depth and temperature technology has allowed claims that they are much more precisely located in cold water and in fact are a cold water fish.
Does 'deep water' necessarily mean 'cold water' ?
Take a second and think about this. The reality is that water warm enough to push lake trout deep only exists for a fraction of the season, the summer months. The rest of the year, the water ranges from cool to totally frozen, and these fish are free to roam, feed and spawn at any depth they like, with no thermal barriers to fence them in. Understanding this really puts finding and catching lake trout into perspective. Let's assume that most years the lakes freeze in early to mid January. The water is cold for January, February, March, April and a good portion of May. Then it gets warm for June, July, August and September. By October, the water's getting cool again, and through November and December it continues to get colder and colder, and the fish are looking to spawn. If you eliminate the fall season when lake trout are spawning and normally closed to fishing, the bulk of the legal fishing opportunities occur when these fish are operating in cold water! And when this is the case, the locations and equipment you need to catch them are very basic. The rigging used is another one of the great myths.
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Proceed North on Highway 61 from Duluth to the Canadian Border. After clearing Customs, continue on Hwy 61 to the city of Thunder Bay. Hwy 61 ends at the junction of Hwy 11 & 17 in Thunder Bay. Continue straight which will be Hwy 11/17 East. (Signs will indicate mileage for Sault Ste Marie, Cochrane, etc.) 
