We have landed a 33" and 29 1/4" laker along with some 28's. What is the biggest laker you have caught up there.

Caught and released a 32-33 inch laker last week in the BWCA. Have caught MANY in the 26 to 28 inch range in both the BWCA and Quetico, as well as much larger ones in northern Canada.

Those are some nice size lakers. Most of mine are in the 20 to 24 inch range. I did have a nice one on Duncan a few years ago (about 28 inches guesstimate ) but he broke off at the side of the canoe. I guess I didn't have him played out enough and he made one more dive for the bottom. I wasn't too mad about losing the fish because I was going the throw it back any way. I was mad about losing the 6-7 dollar lure though.

tony

My personal best is only 20 inches, but I just started fishing lakers this year.

I have crossed Duncan many times, but never really spent much time fishing it. I have seen some impressive stuff on my sonar however. May need to start dragging a Taildancer or something similar across it.

I'm new to the laker world. Who's willing to share techniques, tackle, etc?

Start by going to the MN DNR lake finder, locate lakes with high numbers of said fish, head out early in spring,and try casting 2/5 oz little Cleos. I found retrieving them with a pause/reel retrieve to the most effective.

I have yet to land any big trout, but did take 21 fish over 3 days with approximately 10 fishing hours. It was fun and I now dream of early and late season laker fishing when the water temps are homogenous.

I would also look for a smaller lake, say less than 200 acres, as it's a bit less intimidating when searching for your query. If you have a graph, that will help, but is by no means a requirement for success at this time of year (early spring).

For a rod, I used a 6'6" med action St. Croix Avid series spooled with braid and a 2-3' 10# flouro leader. I'd recommend a landing net as the trout are pretty unruly when they are lifted from the water.

Good luck, gbusk

Well reading this I dont feel so bad. I see all these pics of huge lake trout and I got a little down.

First time fishin for lakers myself this year - first weekend in June. My brother and I (he is a rookie fisherman) caught about 30 fish (20 lakers- 10 Pike) between us in 3 days of fishing (limited due to wind and rain). Our biggest were 23 and 24 inches. He had a bigger one on but wouldnt let me land it...like you said, the lost lure hurt the most.

We did a lot of drifting (due to wind) over 20 ft reefs...dropping off to deeper water, and trolling shorelines, wind blown points, islands, in about 15-20 ft of water (eye ballin, off just so we couldnt see rock). Found them still pretty shallow and saw some chase near camp (less then 10 ft of water).

We used rapalas (regular shad rap, x-rap) in blue and silver, rat-l-traps in blue and silver, and spoons (thomas bouyant - copper). I tried the taildancers (both reg and deep) and didnt have much luck. We moved slow and when got a hit we would cast in the area, found some nice holes that way.

I am no pro at this yet, and have got a lot of tips from this site, but trolling (though quite the workout) got us on fish. Good luck!

oh, and I was told bigger lakers lurk in bigger water (see below), I fished Tuscarora, Gillis, Crooked - good fish, just smaller (most 18-20"):

Knife
Lac La Croix
Ottertrack (Cypress)
Kek

Thanks, folks. I'll be heading to Alton/Sawbill (EP38) on 6-12 July. I've heard Alton is pretty good for lakers, although they'll probably be pretty deep by then.

Rez, you caught lakers in Crooked? DNR says they're not in there.

Usually true! Bigger lure, bigger lake, = bigger fish. However I did have brief period where I caught 5 lakers on 5 casts and though they were only averaging 18" it was cool.

There are two Crooked Lakes in the bdub. I got confused on that at first glance too. This Crooked is in the Gunflint:

http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/lakes/lakes8/crooked.html

the other, i think more popular one is more east and runs on the border:

http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/lakes/lakes3/crooked.html

My largest boundary waters lake trout was 36#. I've caught a few more that barely tipped 30#, but lots and lots of fish in the 20# to 30# range. One thing I have realize while on this web site is that big trout in the border country are not really fished for. Not really sure why that is.

Talking Guide, what tackle do you use for a 30# laker??

Hiker325,

When I am targeting large trout I use relatively stout equipment: Ambassador 7000's spooled with 30# Suffix or Fireline, on a 7 foot medium heavy musky rod. If I am on a lake with little chance of catching fish over 10#'s, I use 6# test and medium spinning rod/reel combos.

Im not sure why more people dont fish for big lake trout but i hope it stays that way.

32" on a tail dancer.