Would anyone care to tell me how are where to get started on the science of lake trout? I know they like deep clear cold water. Other than that and without divulging your secret holes, how when and where do you locate and catch them?

Fish early season and late season and avoid mid-summer.

In May and late September October they are easier to find and catch when the lakes are still cold after ice-out or after they turnover in the fall.

Look for deep lakes and be prepared to spend time finding them. Once you find them you can have a good time.

It's easier to find them when they are near the surface-not 90 feet down. Plus pulling up a Laker from the depths means almost sure death for the fish. They need lots of care and TLC to insure they survive being brought up from so deep. By fishing them when they are closer to the surface they will have far less mortality.

Bogwalker is right pulling a fish to the surface from 90' will swell it's air bladder making it nearly impossible for the fish to return to depth. That's nearly a 3 atmosphere pressure drop. If we tried that our lungs would explode.

In August you can troll the deep drop-offs. You'll need to find 100' or deeper water then hope to find a suspended Laker ( feeding ) in 30 to 60'. It's hit & miss at this time of year. You can kill several hours with little success. If you catch one or two just paln on eating them, they're delicious, the odds of it returning to depth and surviving is slim.

So it sounds like electronics is near essential, lots of line, patience. What do they feed on naturally? Do you know any good books on the subject?

Not that it matters, but I read somewhere that lake trout are capable of making large depth changes, 100+ feet, without any damage to their swim bladder. But the stress from the temperature change is what does them in.

My tip is bring a light weight portable depth finder. They tend to be deep, and water 30 ft deep looks a lot like water 100 ft deep from the seat of a canoe. We were catching them suspended at 70ft in water 120 ft deep this spring when I saw a laker leap out of the water to hit a june bug. It was right next to the boat, I was watching the june bug struggle on the surface thinking that if this was steelhead water that bug would be dead. You could see marks on the Hummingbird where the active ones were shooting up from the deep pretty fast. Same trip we caught some walleye off the bottom in 30 ft that had the swim bladder popping out. I'd never seen that before with walleye. There was a big thermocline, the fish were cold to the touch. I don't know if that made a diff. Deep sea fishing they claim that if you pop the bladder with a hypodermic needle you dissipate the pressure (nitrogen that they can't get back into solution in the blood fast enough) and they can get back down to the cold before they succumb.

I believe Snakecharmer is correct.....Lakers are one of the few fish that can adjust their air bladder quickly while covering a lot of water....thus the huge air bubbles that come up the ice hole in the winter. I had an 8lb. Laker cover 45' of water in a matter of seconds and drill my jig only to run all the way back to the bottom.

MagicStik

at this time of year I have found that pulling that old, yet still oh so trusty gillnet out of the closet is the best way to take them...