Broad lake 7/29

[keithm87]

Hit the lake with a coworker and my buddy Steve today. Launched from coastguard as the lake is getting a little low to go from shelburne. My coworker had never caught a laker so our goal was to get on some.

We launched at 7:15 and headed out to the hump that always seems to produce. Dropped my recently recovered x4d probe down and found the temp break at right around 62ft. Due to my recent issues I decided that meant we would not fish on the hump but around the edges as I know the hump comes up to 66 in normal water levels, and I wasn’t taking any risks. Sent out 3 riggers and a slide diver.

After getting gear set we had a release but no one home, then another and same deal. Finally the third release was the charm and we got that first laker for her. With clouds transitioning to sun the bite started fairly slow, with 6 fish in the first 3 hours, but they were coming in high quality.
On Steve’s first turn the spin n glo fired. He was sturggling with it, and I mocked him that it was probably a tiny one, but when he got it up, it was 32+ inches and just over 12lb. Regret that we weren’t in the derby was quickly felt.

51D263DA-0FDF-4F0B-984E-721BB236A0C0.jpeg (165.46 KiB) Viewed 1415 times

We kept picking away at them, and around 10:30 they turned really turned on. We couldn’t keep lines in the water. We stayed out until 3:30 landing well over 20 fish, but the last 1.5 hours were not even really trying.

All in all it was a great day on the water. Spin n glo setup was the trick like always but we had about 10 releases on the uv black tuxedo stinger too (missed of those)

[DreamWeaver]

Thanks for the report and congrats !!
Encourages me to get back out there next Friday, if mother nature cooperates.

[riddlervt]

I see the WD40. Do you spray your lures? I have used that before and surprisingly it works!
Thanks for sharing
Ridds

[Reelax]

Wd40 will double your strike rate on lakers... shhhhh

[Sawyer]

That Laker looks good and Healthy Keith.

[Captain Paul]

That's a beautiful Lake Trout Keith and I love the way he is being held no hands in the gills wish more guys would handle them that way nice job. By the way Keith just a little tip for you always make your rigger with the probe the highest running line you will be much less apt to lose it that way.

[keithm87]

That's a beautiful Lake Trout Keith and I love the way he is being held no hands in the gills wish more guys would handle them that way nice job. By the way Keith just a little tip for you always make your rigger with the probe the highest running line you will be much less apt to lose it that way.

Yeah we see a lot of people handling fish wrong in pictures. We caught around 25 fish, kept one that was bleeding, released probably 12-14 boatside without bringing them in the boat, dispatched 10 lamprey (including 2 11 inchers that were on a 16 inch laker), and had every released fish swim down when we released them. We keep them boatside facing forward to get water through the gills if they are tired and also try to burp them when needed.

My probe rigger is always my top rigger at least 10-15 ft above my deep one (always between 56-60 degrees at the upper edge of the temp break), where I went wrong a couple weeks back is that I hung the deep rigger up, and my trolling motor turned the boat in a circle as I forgot it was on, and the probe rigger actually tangled on the deep rigger cable and cut off as I have always run braid on my probe to keep blow-back less. But I am switching that one back to cable this week, and will just run a 12lb to keep it from blowing back.

[keithm87]

I see the WD40. Do you spray your lures? I have used that before and surprisingly it works!
Thanks for sharing
Ridds

I usually spray my spin n glo setup dodger and spinner when I first get out to get any odd boat smells from it sitting all week off, and then reapply if I have needed to put on sunscreen to cover that scent. Really any time I handle the lures and may be adding weird scents I give it a quick spray. No clue if it makes a major difference but its a confidence thing at this point and that as we all know is a key to catching fish.

[Captain Paul]

Keith you can also run a pancake on probe that will reduce blow back alot

[keithm87]

How do pancakes track in cross currents? I would imagine with a bigger side profile they would go side to side more is that an accurate assumption? I usually buy the cheap rigger balls from the milk crates at datillios. But have plans to start making my own at some point soon.

[Captain Paul]

I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEM WITH PANCAKES TRACKING AS LONG AS THE FIN IS STRAIGHT

[fishy1]

good report keith glad you got into them and that is a nice laker.

[Bearcat]

10 lb Pancake with a probe will hang pretty straight down to about 70' or so, especially at your lake trout speeds. This week with the line counter on the rigger at 110' in Ontario my pancake was probably only around 80' down, but those currents up there are much worse, looked like I was flatlining. The fish didn't care, caught a lot of kings, and had one snap my heavy eagle claw downrigger rod right in half - never had so much fun losing money!

[Bearcat]

And I'm sure you know this but don't forget, your ball depth on the fish finder isn't actually your ball depth, it's distance from the ball to the transducer - can be a huge difference. Your ball and a fish arch might both print at 100' but if you have some blow back and the fish is actually at 100' directly below the boat, your lure could easily be 10' or 20' higher than the fish. Conversely, a very big fish that's way off to the side of the sonar cone can show up as a tiny blip. (I read a book about this and now I'm even more confused than ever but I still like the site of a screen full of arches!)

[keithm87]

Yeah I have the x4d so my probe gives me depth of the ball. It makes figuring out blowback on the other riggers pretty easy too. It is crazy how much impact a little current or a tiny change in speed can have on blowback. I have gotten fairly good at judging the angle of the rigger cables as well.