The day started off with some choppy water on Cold Lake and we utilized 1.5 hours cruising over some structure keeping an eye on the sonar. The plan was to try and locate some aggressive lake trout to get on a hot jigging bite. This worked well as eventually we came upon a pattern where these lake trout where absolutely schooled up in shallow water. This was a perfect scenario of wind blowing into this structure for multiple days and cool water temps. Once we got on these fish it was time to grab my favourite spinning rod and star picking them apart.
I grabbed one of my favourite finesse baits the fluke and pitched it up into the shallow water. This bait must have matched the forage perfectly because as it slowly popped off the reef and instantly I was hooked up and with the drag screaming I remembered why this was my favourite way to fish lake trout. After catching a few more nice size trout I decided to move out a little bit where I was marking some big schools of fish earlier.
As soon as that bait got half way to the bottom a streak came up on my sonar and sure enough my line went slack and I closed my bail and set into this scrappy lake trout. After I released this fish and started to drop again another fish picked it up right off the bottom. That’s when I knew that spending that little extra time cruising around structure that looked promising and marking out some schools of fish was well worth it.
Once again boat control is always key when trying to stay on top a school of fish and getting to watch them chase on your sonar unit. When the water is calm enough I like to utilize my Mind Kota electric paired with my remote to try to minimize on the noise. However, if the wind is to strong I like to face the back of my boat into the waves and bump my motor in and out of revers. The key is to always keep your line strait up and down so you can get a good judge on the fish.
Good luck on your next adventure on the water!
Cold Lake
June 6 2019