Going in Aug 23 and myself have never fished lakers during open water. That time of year what should I be looking for in structure/depth? I have never fished brookies but do fish rainbows would my taticts change for brookies?

I’ve caught Rainbows in 15-20 ft of water. Brookies will be a little deeper, maybe down to about 35 ft. Lakers will be around 50-60ft. I use a jointed Rapala to catch Rainbows and I use little cleos and Kastmasters for the Brookies and Lakers.

If you want Brook or Rainbow trout, you need to go to a lake that has been stocked with them by the MN DNR. Also, not all lakes have Lake Trout. You need to check at the DNR Lake Finder site to see what species are present in each lake.

Lakers in August will be deep. Find the deepest hole in the lake and drop a jig or spoon to the bottom and start ripping it up and letting it fall. Repeat as needed. Lakers can be tough to catch this time of year. When the surface water is cold, early spring and late fall are the best times for trout.

Both of the above posts ring true.

But I will add my point of skew........Andy suggests jigging in the deep area of a lake. I like that idea if the lake is rather smallish with a specific deep hole which concentrates the fish. His jigging tactic would be right on the button.

But jigging in and of itself is rather a poor "searching" method and you might spend much time ripping jigs where there is no fish. Obviously a poor formula for success so bear that in mind. If you can mark fish with your finder by all means give it a go........lakers, from what I have read and seen via video, are quite susceptible to vertical presentations.

Egknuti has numerous big laker / trout pics to his credit and it would be wise to pay attention when he chimes in. He advocates for spoons, has given a depth reference for your time of year and he trolls. What he has omitted is how to get your spoon into 55ft of water. I cannot remember his preferred method but several options exist. A 3 way swivel with 2oz or 3oz will likely get you into the game as would an in-line weight with at least the same amount of weight. Be sure to add a sampo ball bearing swivel to your spoon to prevent line twist. Snap weights also have their fair share of devotees.

As for me, I fish lakers in August and typically run a large Tail Dancer (crank bait) on 10lb line way back behind the boat and troll at a medium speed. If the lakers are active they will come and get it as their eyesight is quite keen. The Taildancer will run about 25 to 28 ft.

Andy suggests lakers being difficult to catch in August. He is right but he's also wrong ;-) Don't be discouraged, I routinely catch lake trout even in August. But sometimes I don't ;-(

The trick is to keep trying. Sometimes Lakers might not be in the mood to bite for a day or two and then they put the feed bag out. So try at various times during the day even if it is just for an hour or two.........keep your lure wet and good things will happen, eventually ;-)

I'd troll like MT says for lake trout. Keep an eye on your finder and if you mark fish, stop and drop a jig or a jigging spoon and give it 5 minutes; sometimes those fish are biters and if they are you'll likely know soon enough.

Brook trout lakes are more rare. Tough to beat a modified bead-head nymph (small jig and half a worm:) My wife provided us with an intuition that put us on lots of nice brookies after we had struck out both shallow and deep: "let's try it medium." Medium depths in the lake we fish is 17 - 19 fow.

The smallest husky jerks trolled on a long, long, line (use fireline and a mono leader) produce rainbows for me. Like maybe 200' of line. Those buggers are boat-shy. Sweep the rod forward and keep it erratic.

Sometimes trout don't bite though.
Here is a June brookie and an August laker.

I was out last week. Started trolling using 1oz weights then added another 3/4 oz. That seemed to do the trick. I caught all my lake trout in 50-60ft of water. All fish were in that range no matter what depth I was. I caught no fish between 60-120ft of water. I trolled as slow as possible. I saw other people jigging with no success. Persistence is key. One day I caught one fish and another day I caught 5. I fished all day, 7-9:30 with a few breaks in between. It was well worth the effort!

egknuti: "I was out last week. Started trolling using 1oz weights then added another 3/4 oz. That seemed to do the trick. I caught all my lake trout in 50-60ft of water. All fish were in that range no matter what depth I was. I caught no fish between 60-120ft of water. I trolled as slow as possible. I saw other people jigging with no success. Persistence is key. One day I caught one fish and another day I caught 5. I fished all day, 7-9:30 with a few breaks in between. It was well worth the effort!
"

Nice! The trout we caught on Ima two weeks ago were 50 fow or less as well; we were trolling spoons with jet divers and getting down about 25'.

Your comment about persistence is very true and backs up what MT said about keeping at it. Sometimes the trout refuse to cooperate, and then the next day you get 5 (or 10)!

For those who have not seen a jet diver, this is what I mean: https://www.rapala.com/luhr-jensen/trolling-accessories/divers/jet-diver/Jet+Diver.html

They work extraordinarily well for getting light lures down, and they don't interfere with the fight. They also back up nicely when you get snagged. I still lose one or two every trip, but I have a much better recovery rate than I do with fish seekers or snap weights (both of which I like and use).

rpike: "

egknuti: "I was out last week. Started trolling using 1oz weights then added another 3/4 oz. That seemed to do the trick. I caught all my lake trout in 50-60ft of water. All fish were in that range no matter what depth I was. I caught no fish between 60-120ft of water. I trolled as slow as possible. I saw other people jigging with no success. Persistence is key. One day I caught one fish and another day I caught 5. I fished all day, 7-9:30 with a few breaks in between. It was well worth the effort!
"

Nice! The trout we caught on Ima two weeks ago were 50 fow or less as well; we were trolling spoons with jet divers and getting down about 25'.


Your comment about persistence is very true and backs up what MT said about keeping at it. Sometimes the trout refuse to cooperate, and then the next day you get 5 (or 10)!


For those who have not seen a jet diver, this is what I mean: https://www.rapala.com/luhr-jensen/trolling-accessories/divers/jet-diver/Jet+Diver.html


They work extraordinarily well for getting light lures down, and they don't interfere with the fight. They also back up nicely when you get snagged. I still lose one or two every trip, but I have a much better recovery rate than I do with fish seekers or snap weights (both of which I like and use)."

thanks for providing the link to the jet diver I was about to call an outfitter and ask what it was....

murphylakejim: "

rpike: "

egknuti: "I was out last week. Started trolling using 1oz weights then added another 3/4 oz. That seemed to do the trick. I caught all my lake trout in 50-60ft of water. All fish were in that range no matter what depth I was. I caught no fish between 60-120ft of water. I trolled as slow as possible. I saw other people jigging with no success. Persistence is key. One day I caught one fish and another day I caught 5. I fished all day, 7-9:30 with a few breaks in between. It was well worth the effort!
"

Nice! The trout we caught on Ima two weeks ago were 50 fow or less as well; we were trolling spoons with jet divers and getting down about 25'.



Your comment about persistence is very true and backs up what MT said about keeping at it. Sometimes the trout refuse to cooperate, and then the next day you get 5 (or 10)!



For those who have not seen a jet diver, this is what I mean: https://www.rapala.com/luhr-jensen/trolling-accessories/divers/jet-diver/Jet+Diver.html



They work extraordinarily well for getting light lures down, and they don't interfere with the fight. They also back up nicely when you get snagged. I still lose one or two every trip, but I have a much better recovery rate than I do with fish seekers or snap weights (both of which I like and use)."

thanks for providing the link to the jet diver I was about to call an outfitter and ask what it was...."

Jet divers come in 10', 20', 30', 40', and 50' models. I most commonly use the 20 and 30' models. The 50' diver requires different, putzier rigging which IMO is not worth the hassle.

Thanks for all the help hope we pick right on the lakes to fish. Only a 4 day trip so we will only get 1day for Lakers and 1 for brookies. Hoping to do the same trip next spring but for 7days.

End of June we were fishing with Little Cleo's and they would not bite on anything else. We had 3/4oz lures and paddled pretty slow so I think we were around 20-30ft deep. In August they are going to be deeper. Look for areas where the bottom comes up a bit. Similar to rock piles where you would fish for walleye, troll over piles 40-80ft down. Trout can be anywhere that's deep enough but usually you will find them a little more concentrated around some structure that might also draw in some bait fish.

I have heard good things about tail dancers too, but we didn't have luck with them on our trip. I would recommend having backups too. It sucks to find a couple colors that they are biting on then lose them to snags or notherns. If you do have trouble with northers biting off your line then use a titanium leader. It should be thin enough to not alert the trout but still strong enough to withstand the northern.

One thing I did was putting swivels directly on the spoon using the split ring. Then I just tied directly to the swivel and there is minimal gear being used. All it took was 1 pack of swivels and most of my Little Cleo's were ready. I saved a couple for other uses too.

I also took some really old swivels with the barrel instead of the ball bearing and removed the clasp to transfer it to some weights. That way I could easily add or subtract them from a 3 way swivel setup. I didn't need it because the trout were shallow enough but it would have been handy for going between 1 and 2 ounces of extra weight.