By Will Nolan
The north lake fishing reports as of today have been descent, although the fishing has slowed a bit it seems due to the heavy rain and weather patterns the last few weeks. The unstable weather and runoff has stained the water and has the fish spread out. They typically are grouped together more this time of year as July and Aug are primetime for lake trout. They typical are tight to the bottom but seem to be more suspended in last few weeks. In situations like these a trolling method seems more productive given they are so spread out.
Fish seem to be hitting around 60-80 feet of water over many different depths. We anticipate them stacking up heavy in the coming weeks and improving, Typical techniques still apply. Our salmon bite has not been very good this year in the north. We have not seen many reports. Although there have been some really nice fish taken they don’t seem to be in great number. This is partly due to this cormorant situation, has plagued our fishery and forestry and is seriously contributing year after year to depletion of our salmon population.
Some Typical techniques for salmon are trolling spoons, pin minnows, dodger fly setups with vertical/horizontal blades on downriggers, slide divers, and lead core. They prefer 52-55-degree water and are typically staged just above the thermocline. The thermocline has been tough to find and hasn’t setup as it normally does due to the unstable weather we’ve had.
Thanks to all for the support and Tight lines to all. Feel free to offer any north lake reports and message me Will Nolan, Swillyslurecraft@gmail.com
