Myself and one son, are headed for the BWCA on May 9TH. My plan is to fish Lake Trout till the walleye opener the next weekend. I was thinking about Oyster then going back the weekend to Agnes to fish walleyes, northerns and smallies, going in on Moose River North. We have a week so about a good day or a day and a half each way. Not opposed to going in the east side but the west side is closer and I know it somewhat better. Not crazy about big water but will do big water to catch a Lake Trout. Please don't suggest Cherokee because I've beat that lake to a bloody froth twice ]early June] and got tired arms, wet spoons and plugs, and not even a strike. Thanks in advance. PS all fish caught will be turned loose unless they won't survive, we are not fish eaters. FRED

lake trout opens the same day as the walleye opener. seagull is a good entry point lake for lake trout.

Unless I'm wrong, you can't target Lake Trout until the walleye opener.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

quote sammyN: "Unless I'm wrong, you can't target Lake Trout until the walleye opener.


Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong."

Correct on all accounts they both open the same day.

Also in MN you cannot do catch and release for fish out of season either. I'd just head up a day or 2 before opener and keep the rods packed away until opener.

T

My partner and I go in on thursday...on Friday we paddle around with the graph on to see where we find fish. So we have an idea about a general area to start early the next morning.

After I saw shocks reply I looked up the seasons and you are all right no Lakers till opening weekend, probably scrap that May trip or go further north. Thanks for the replies, I thought Lake Trout season opened sooner. FRED

We did a lake trout trip once to Kekekabic Lake. We got a tow through Moose lake up to Birch then paddled to Knife lake and base camped and took a day trip to Kekekabic. We came from the southeast part of Knife lake through Eddy lake then a series of small ponds to get to the east end of Kek and we just fished that end. Maybe its easier or shorter if you portaged south from Knife through Spoon lake and Pickle lake to fish the west end, either way I think you could get to Kek in one day and base camp there but it'd be a long day. I honestly don't know how many lakers we caught but we fished the lake for about 3 hours, 2 canoes each with 2 people, and there were very few times that someone did not have a fish on. They were all between 16 and 20 inches so no big ones but we only fished shallow and were happy catching the ones we were getting, maybe bigger fish in deeper water? Also this was the 1st week of June, so maybe mid may the big fish might still be shallow. If you look at the lake survey on the MN DNR site, I know its from 1988 but still, it says they caught an average of 8.2 fish per net, the normal range it says was .8 to 4.3 per net. So Kekekabic lake was nearly double the amount of lakers than the high end of the average.

Twistertail beat me to this reply but supposedly laker lakes in the BWCA are ranked as Knife, Thomas/Fraser and Kek. There are many others with the right forage base and depths but these are rumored to be the top 3 producers. There are a few southern Q spots I'm planning to hit in May via PP as an alternative if I get out before the opener.

I have not fished Kek (though I want to now) but I've got some nice ones on Knife during that time period so why not hit both? We trolled suspended fish with Tail Dancers. Our largest was 25' but I'm sure there are bigger ones in there.

Kek sounds intriguing.....