June 15th-16th Walleye & Lake Trout, First lake trout at the cottage

Went up to the cottage this past weekend to get a friend out to fish for the first time this openwater season. Our goal was to mainly target walleye and whitefish and scout some potential locations for lake trout.

We launched from the cottage around 6:30am Saturday morning (a later start than we were hoping for) beginning at a location that had been consistent for walleye so far this season. Once on the water, we were greeted by a strong easterly wind and realized that we had forgotten to charge the battery for the trolling motor. With no running trolling motor for the morning, we positioned ourselves up-wind of the shoal and started our drift along the structure. Within our first few casts, my friend hooked into a walleye in about 8'-10'. We didn't get a length measurement but weighed the fish back at the cottage, just under 2.5 lbs. Caught on a 1/5oz ned rigged with a 2.5" chartreuse soft plastic minnow.



Later that day, we headed out in search of whitefish in a bay we had success earlier this spring. A few individual marks in 35'-40' and as we pushed a bit deeper a few more scattered marks. I had a light bite in 45' and my friend had a miss not long after. We moved on to another section of the bay and picked up fish tightly grouped together in 45'. We suspected they were whitefish but needed to head back to the cottage for a late lunch.

Around 6pm we jumped back on the boat to try by an area with some developing weed beds closer to the cottage but weren't able to get on any walleye.

Sunday morning we got out for a short 2 hour fish from 6:30am-8:30am, my friend needed to get an early start back to the city. We decided to scout some potential lake trout locations I had pinned. We were passing over deeper water (70'-80') so I wanted something heavier that could get down quickly if we marked any suspended fish. I tied on a 12g Nishine Lure Works smelthead rigged with a 3.5" jerk shad soft plastic. We had just moved up to 40' from 80' up a steep cliff and I hooked into my first lake trout from our lake, a stocked fish (clipped pelvic fin).





Overall, it was a fairly productive weekend crossing off another species and continuing to learn more about our lake.

Nice fish, The pictures sure turned out great. Beautiful colouring on the fish.

Decent succes for scouting around

sounds like a great scouting trip.

Looks like a good weekend those are some nice fish

Nice catch!

Thanks Drew, we’ve found a couple spots now that seem fairly productive but I’m trying to mix in scouting new parts of the lake every time we go out.

Cman- the morning lighting I find is great for photos. Mid-day can be tough with shadows becoming more of a factor. The fillets on the lake trout were nice and orange:

Awesome job!
It's always fun exploring a lake and finding new spots. I often do this on lakes I fish regularly. I'll spend a day and fish areas that look good, but I've never fished before. (Sometimes it pays off and I find a dynamite spot.)

Nice. And really nice to have friends/family join in the fishing to figure out spots to fish. I need to do the same with "my" lake(s) around me. It's a slow process but finding a few spots already but need alot more time for all the lakes around here.