I know according to lakefinder it doesn't have any but it's plenty deep enough and it's down the watershed from basswood, anybody ever caught any there?

I never have, but I have not specifically targeted them. This subject has been brought up before and I believe the consensus was no.

Strange as it may seem, as far as I know there are no lakers in Crooked. There are lots of laker lakes just north of Crooked.

Yeah I just thought there had to be some from basswood but maybe not

from lake map finders

There is an old (1972) survey where the workers doing the survey just did a present/not present check for species. That survey data shows Lake Trout as present (they often didn't include catch numbers at that time, at least not for BW lakes). Now they haven't showed up in any surveys since. Take that for what it is. Best case there are very few Lakers still present (maybe ever present). Or they stay to the Canadian side, or they've disappeared for some reason or combination of reasons. Who knows, but I wouldn't put time in looking for them.

Interesting that it has has enough oxygenated deep, cold water to house cold water species but they haven't surveyed a Laker in the past 30 years, and they don't seem to survey many Burbot or Whitefish either. The Cisco numbers are medicore too. Not sure what it is about Crooked that makes it that way.

quote mcsweem: "Yeah I just thought there had to be some from basswood but maybe not"

Interesting...I have never been too or fished Basswood. But according to lake finder there were no lakers taken either.

Basswood lakers are primarily on the Canadian side where the MN DNR cannot survey.

T

I have trolled waters in Crooked that were deep enough for lakers, but never marked or caught any. If I was going fishing for lakers, I would fish the lakes north of Crooked, and not waste time on Crooked.

According to my trip notes, I've scoped water as deep as 65 feet in the north part of Wednesday Bay, and noted some suspended fish 35 feet off the bottom in early July. Couldn't get them to hit, so don't know what they were. Whitefish? Ciscoes? Lakers?

Crooked and Kawnipi (in Quetico) both beg the question: "Do these lakes contain lake trout?".
Old surveys seem to mention their presence, but no one knows anyone who has ever caught a trout from these lakes!

quote arctic: "According to my trip notes, I've scoped water as deep as 65 feet in the north part of Wednesday Bay, and noted some suspended fish 35 feet off the bottom in early July. Couldn't get them to hit, so don't know what they were. Whitefish? Ciscoes? Lakers?


Crooked and Kawnipi (in Quetico) both beg the question: "Do these lakes contain lake trout?".
Old surveys seem to mention their presence, but no one knows anyone who has ever caught a trout from these lakes!"

Could be whitefish, ciscoes, lakers, or burbot. 35 feet down might even be warm water fish, not sure how quickly the temp drops off in Basswood in July. Hazarding a guess, if the water was cold at 35' I'd say Ciscoes would be most likely, given that there are more Ciscoes than the other 3 species in that lake and they are chronic suspenders.

I don't anything about Kawnipi but it wouldn't surprise me if the Laker population in those two lakes has always been very small and fragile. And, very possibly, now gone. If spawning habitat or something else was keeping the populations low a little thing like SM Bass invading (or something else) could be the final straw and those populations may be lost.

quote schollmeier: "
I don't anything about Kawnipi but it wouldn't surprise me if the Laker population in those two lakes has always been very small and fragile. And, very possibly, now gone. If spawning habitat or something else was keeping the populations low a little thing like SM Bass invading (or something else) could be the final straw and those populations may be lost."

That's what happened to the lake trout in Brule Lake after smallmouth bass and walleyes were introduced... Haven't heard of a trout caught there in years.