Laker Advice

Has anyone had luck on Lakers, been out 3 times and got home with nothing, been fishing points and river mouths on lake of bays with tubes and minnows, any advice or other places that have been producing, feel free to pm

Structure counts, but depth is more important for lakers. Try only fishing between 55 and 75 ft. Lake of bays has a healthy population. You should get into them.

if you've got any winter ice fishing spots on LoB, around 70 FOW, I'd drop a minnow down and try to stay vertical, if you've got a portable downrigger or dipsy divers, troll a spoon down to 40 or 50 adjacent to a fast breaking shore and you should bump into a couple

Thanks? I don’t have any trolling gear, and my fishfinder isn’t the best at showing fish so I’m practically blind out there.

You dont need trolling gear. Just 3 way with 5-6 oz will get you down there. Or dipsy diver, jet diver etc. As for the fish finder, you don't need to see the fish. As long as you can see your depth, and keep yourself within the depth range, you'll get em.

Curious what fish finder you have that won’t mark at those depths??

Even the old crappy $60.00 ones will show Lakers

I used to have a Lowrance elite 5X-HDI but I bought it used and it showed absolutely nothing but the depth. I sold it with the boat and the new boat I just got came with a old hummingburd with just 2d sonar but I have yet to try it.

Best to think of any of them as structure/depth finders.

I have had many units.

I had a x96 piece of el cheapo unit that would mark Lakers and whitefish and evening older units that would. Only difference with 2D old units is watts for depth penetration but that for super deep stuff. That and pixels for seeing definition.

IMO any sonar can be set to mark Lakers. I have yet to ever handle one that couldn’t.

I agree. Fish finder mostly used to remain in the depths you're looking for.

I've had my screen constantly showing fish, and caught zero.
I've caught lots of lakers trolling that never showed on my screen.

If all my finder did was show depth, only as a number, I don't think my catch rate would change much if at all.

As far as lake of bays, 50-90 feet would be my preference to get lakers.

I think for lakers and walleye especially, being able to discern what you're seeing on the sonar and marking fish and not just bottom is an advantage

Use deep driver lures such as Reef runners or Rapala DT20

Fishing the shoal help alot

another

We rented a place there for 6 days. This was in late July in the portion of the lake toward Dorset. Big lake and I had never been there before and didn't know the lake at all...I brought the downriggers and trolled the way I would on any lake when targeting Lakers - run bait/lure as close to bottom (or ticking off bottom once in a while) as possible. When I troll for Lakers I'm constantly adjusting the ball depth, one eye on FF, adjust depth to match bottom. I had never been there and caught many Lakers on every outing plus a couple bonus whitefish. The lake seems to be absolutely loaded with life - fish and baitfish.

You may not have downriggers, but you don't need them. Vertical jigging with typical jigging spoons, tube jigs, jigging raps, etc... Get to bottom in 50 to 70 ft. Find spots where it jumps up from 70-80 ft to 50-60 ft. Fish the transition portion and the 50-60 ft flat with a vertical jigging presentation and you'll find Lakers. The FF may not show fish, but that doesn't matter. If it shows depth contours you'll find them. Lakers are often laying with bellies on bottom and may not show up on the graph, or just look like a rock...

As others have said, you could get a couple Dipsys if you want to try trolling deep and don't want to invest in downriggers.

Good luck.