Mooching for Canadian Lakers

Gods Lake in northern Manitoba is renowned as a world class Lake Trout fishery. The average Laker caught is 6 to 10 pounds, with larger fish up to 40 pounds in the mix every year. The largest “trophy” Lakers weigh in at over 50 pounds! At our lodge, we’ve fine-tuned an angling technique for Lakers using a bottom bouncer in tandem with a herring teaser and a dead smelt or herring.

We add one ounce egg sinkers and “squeeze” them on to a bottom bouncer to get our lure to the depth we want. Every one ounce egg sinker equals about 10 feet in depth. The lure is trolled along break lines and feeding flats. We often vary the weight and therefore the depth trolled, until we find the Lake Trout and the right depth for the day. Speed can play a factor as well. You want the lure moving fast enough to have a gentle spin as it travels through the water. In this type of fishing, the Trout hit hard and you need to be ready to set the hook and hold on, or risk breaking a rod.

We had one funny instance where my clients had been successfully hitting the Lakers pretty hard using this technique; they had hooked 6 in the 8-15 pound range during one 15 minute span. While continuing to troll a break line, one of the guys decided to relax and close his eyes for a second. The next thing he knew, the Laker had hit his lure hard, his rod was in two pieces, and line was flying off his reel! Luckily his brother quickly assessed the situation and like any quick-witted angler would do, picked up the broken rod end and tried to set the hook by holding it high. Unfortunately, everyone was laughing so hard the big Laker spit out the hook and left my client with yet another story about the big one that got away!

The reward of hooking and battling a big Laker this way has proven to be tons of fun for many of our clients, and I encourage you to give it a try and tell us how it works for you.