Gorge Lake Trout

There is no question about it, I am a bass angler through and through.  But my home water is Flaming Gorge Reservoir, (northeastern Utah) which is such a prolific fishery that early in the year when the bass are just waking up, I like to target lake trout.  The problem is that I’ve only fished for lakers for a few years which puts me at a relative disadvantage to other more seasoned lake trout anglers. Also,  I refuse to use bait most of the time and I rarely troll.  Instead, I fish large Gitzits and use a technique called “vertical jigging” to attract fish.  If the fish won’t bite a jig — I don’t catch too many fish.  But, if the fish are active, it’s a very different story.

Jigging for lake trout is a technique a friend of mine, Jerry Zabriskie introduced to anglers on Flaming Gore 25-plus years ago.  The concept was and is simple:  find fish on your electronics, and drop your presentation right on their heads.  It sounds pretty easy right?  Well, at times it is but Flaming Gorge is not a “mild” environment in which to fish.  Winds are common, and it’s cold in the mornings 10 months out of twelve.  In addition, in order to follow Zabriskie’s technique you must be directly above the fish.  It’s one thing to see fish on the fish finder, it’s another to keep that fish under you until you get a chance to present your jig.

In the relatively short time I’ve been successfully jigging for lakers I’ve learned that the fish react differently to lures as each season matures.  In the winter under the ice, lakers seem to hit hard.  They become very predictable and you are assured some solid bites as long as there are fish in the general area of your holes.

In the spring and early summer, the fish are still fairly aggressive but at times they can have lock jaw.  It is then that I use scent to push reluctant fish into biting.  My preferred attractant scent is garlic, and lakers just love it. “Bang” makes a great garlic flavor and I saturate my Gitzits with the sauce.

This past weekend, I spent a couple of days on Flaming Gorge, and while the bass fishing was very good, I decided to spend a little time on the last day of our trip catching lake trout.  I located a long point in the Lucerne Bay area and slowly cruised the area looking for fish on my Lowrance LCX 27C finder.  I found a few fish at the 54-foot level.  In the spring I choose six- to 10-inch special Gitzits made by Canyon Plastics.   Within a couple of minutes I hooked and landed a healthy 12-pound trout.  Then, just five minutes later, I located a larger fish on the screen and dropped my tube to the waiting fish.  Almost immediately, I felt a small tap … and I set the hook.  The rod bent double and the fight was on.

An hour an twenty minutes later I landed a 33 pound 13 ounce lake trout that literally turned me every which way but loose.  I used 14-pound-test line on a Quantum spinning reel, and all I could do was hope to wear the trout down.  The fish made at least six dives all the way to the bottom and she pulled me out into 120-plus feet of water.  It was a fantastic fight.  A small crowd of anglers watched my ordeal on the light tackle.  I would have it no other way.  Light tackle is the key to getting bites; and learning patience is the key to landing big fish.  Fighting that huge fish was not only hard on me but it was tough on the fish too.  It took nearly 20 minutesto revive the trout and to make sure she would ultimately survive the encounter.  With a quick flip of her tail, she pushed clear of my hands, hovered around 10 feet under the boat and then began a slow, decent all the way to the bottom — once again choosing 54 feet of water.

In the summer, lake trout become more and more finicky.  They don’t want the bait to move on the bottom.  And, the bites become more and more subtle.  Later in the year, I’ll talk about the lake trout spawn and describe the changes in their behavior as they get ready to reproduce.

Please follow and like us: