What baits have you had the most success with? I fish for trout in mid summer.

As I am sure you know, you have to get down deep in midsummer. Spoons will run as deep as you want if you put weight in front or run them out far enough behind the boat. Daredevil, Doctor, Krockodile- they all work good if they are run in front of the fish- 70+ feet down (I've caught them in Lake Michigan at 225 ft in mid summer). Lakers like flash. We bring along some silver fish scale mylar tape (Bass Pro Shops- $3) and add strips to lures.

Late June and early July you can still get Lakers about 15 ft down. We've got them both right on top of a deep hole (but only 15 ft down or so) and on the ridge between two holes.

This one we got on Frost Lake last week:

Ill give the tape a try. Ty Cat. No affect on the action of the bait? Have you heard of anyone having success with the "lighted" luhr jensen plug?

never used the lighted one but the luhr jenson kwikfish workes well for me

spoons.

I have good success with the Laker taker with glow strip and the krocodile spoon. In general I favor the flutter types. Just looking for a something new to try.

In that case- deep running crankbaits, such as Shad Rap and Storm Deep Thunder in flashy colors. Need help to get down deep though. On the big lake we use dodgers and flies. The big silver dodger whips a little fly back and forth, deep in the abyss (200+ ft attached to a 10lb downrigger ball). I bet that the dodger and fly would slay 'em if you could get it down deep enough (Dipsey Diver perhaps). Mortality on released fish would be high.

I have a dodger but never use it. Can you post a link of what a fly for lake trout would look like?

just a guess....streamer?

Bassass- posting links is beyond the range of my cyber skills, but if you Google-image "dodger and fly" a bunch of pictures of the setup will pop up. The fly is bigger than anything you'd typically use flyfishing per se. Some are tinsel and hair, others are rubber and essentially smaller versions of the "squids" used in saltwater billfishing. They are available from the big catalogs and I'll bet at Duluth baitshops focusing on Lake Superior. We use the biggest size dodger in silver/chartreuse with similar color flys. The dodger imitates a school of baitfish dodging a salmonid. The fly is the last fish in the school. Taken together, it is a big flashy setup that moves a lot of water. The fish need some help locating the bait because they are dispersed in the low light levels down deep. This is a proven lake trout bait that the fish in the BWCA have probably never seen, if you can get it down deep and moving fast enough to elicit the desired action. I would recommend stout baitcasting gear (leadcore line maybe) and two guys that can move the boat.

Our best luck always comes from a simple HEAVY bucktail jig.

Tip it with some fish meat or even a leech for added appeal.

It's simple, easy, and very, very effective...

What weight jig? 1oz? do you just drag it and jig it? drift and jig?

we have used shad raps, little cleo spoons, mepps spinners, doctors, and something called a crippled herring, all with success.

A 1-2 oz white jig dressed up a little or a Dr. Spoon. In summer, gotta get deep into the abyss. Deep trolling (use a weight 4-6' above your lure) or deep jigging (work the whole water column until you find them).

Say you're in 60 feet of water, and you're using a standard spoon. How do you guys count down spoons? Do you add weight to get down to those depths or just wait to feel the bottom?

rockskipper, this is what I've done for midsummer lakers (although I used clear 6lb berkley xl instead of green line)