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Boundary Waters Quetico Forum Fishing Forum Laker depths |
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06/23/2022 12:06PM
I'm curious what depths people are having success at, and what kinda of water temps you saw there?
I was shocked last week. 53 - 57 degree surface temps and no action in the top of the water column for us. We caught them in the 15-25 range, often over deeper water like 30-50. That's not very different from where we caught them a year ago when the air temps were in the 90s and water temps in the mid/high 60s.
I have yet to experience that magical shallow water laker bite. I thought our timing was really good with the weather this year but it remained a deeper trolling bite for us. No worries, we still caught a limit and had an excellent meal on the last night of our trip.
I was shocked last week. 53 - 57 degree surface temps and no action in the top of the water column for us. We caught them in the 15-25 range, often over deeper water like 30-50. That's not very different from where we caught them a year ago when the air temps were in the 90s and water temps in the mid/high 60s.
I have yet to experience that magical shallow water laker bite. I thought our timing was really good with the weather this year but it remained a deeper trolling bite for us. No worries, we still caught a limit and had an excellent meal on the last night of our trip.
06/24/2022 11:42AM
Last week there was a mayfly hatch. Tuesday the 14th, it was earlier in the hatch and we caught a couple on Rapalas 5-10 feet down. We just put on shallow lures because they were coming up to feed on the mayflies on the surface. Didn't fish Wednesday when we traveled. By Thursday, all the mayflies were dead and the fish were stuffed. We only caught 1 more laker on Friday despite trying for quite a while on Thursday and Friday. That one was at 12-17 feet down. The water was cold, but they just weren't coming up to feed like usual.
06/24/2022 03:43PM
AmarilloJim: "I consider 10' down the shallow bite. This can be in 10' of water or over 100' of water. For this I troll a DDHJ 10. Sometimes I'll use a HJ 12 but I need to see a lot of bait at or near the surface. "
Good point. I think when people say shallow water Lake trout it might mean different things to different people.
I've had my best luck in May fishing 20' down over 50-100' of water. I think that is shallow water bite. Sometimes 20' is too deep. No matter what time of year once you get 10-20' down the temp of the water isn't a huge difference.
One August I caught lakers fishing a 20' reef near 50' water. I thought that was a shallow water bite. Heck another August I was jigging walleyes on a wind swept bank in 10' of water and was pulling in smaller lakers...that's the shallowist bite I've ever seen at anytime of year.
T
06/29/2022 09:00PM
Interesting reports, thanks everyone. I have seen videos of guys casting countdowns at them on 4ft reef in Manitoba in the fall, I think with our season ending sept 30 and the weather we typically get that’s just not realistic this far south. That’s what I’ve had in my head as the “shallow laker bite” but sounds like it’s more relative.
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