So my little brother dropped out and just 2 of us are entering Brant headed to Little Sag on the 20th. About a week away, getting excited and thinking about the current conditions.

Lake temp. With the current lake temps how deep are we looking at finding lakers? I'm set to hit various depths including using 3-way swivels, and I'm thinking about starting with a purple tail dancer then moving deeper if there are no other suggestions.

Colors. I'm set up with various options but any suggestions are welcome. I know sometimes this varies year to year

Lure. Not planning on bringing any leeches, worms or minnows. We do have some plastics that I can use if that is working. Mainly looking at Little Cleo's and various lures. Tail dancers, deep diving Rapalas, red eyes, husky jerks and so on. Research has put me into a 'too much information' situation and I'd like to narrow it down to some go-to options if you have them.

Location. Lastly, should I aim more for drop offs or over deep water? I know they will come up to bite, so that means I should be fishing over deeper? I feel like I have a lot of half knowledge on trout.

We just returned from a week long trip ending Sat. We took a day trip to a laker lake and I probably have less knowledge than you on them. We tried a few cranks, spoons, etc. and caught 4 trout on a rainbow trout pattern 2/3 oz little Cleo. No other lures had even a hit. Got lucky as I'd ordered that lure from cabelas a few days before the trip in case we went to a laker lake. I didn't have any real setups packed for getting deep so I just hung a 2oz weight about 4 or 5 feet in front of what we were trolling or drifting. No clue how deep I was fishing nor how deep the water was where we were but based on contour map I'd guess 20 to 40 ft and lure in the 30 range.

Just got back and did well with trout. Ate a few and all had silver baitfish in their bellies; unsurprisingly, silver taildancers worked best. Some were deep and some were shallow depending on the lake (some lakes are colder than others).

Use a 3 way swivel with a silver crankbait, have one guy in the boat try to get his down to about 20' and the other around 30' and just paddle around. We caught some in the middle of big lakes, others close to islands in deeper water. There are a few places on the lakes we know well that we always find good amounts of fish every year, but they do move around.

The "hot chub" color on tail dancers works really well too for everything, caught a lot of bass, a laker, and a 35" pike on that color.