Rock Doctor
12-27-2020, 11:21 PM
So, my brother had been promising to bring me a big Lake Trout for the past year or so ( he gets out to different fishing locations more often than I do), I wanted one to try in the smoker. Rumours had it that big Lakers are terrible, oily/greasy things not fit for consumption, but I really thought I could do it justice.
As it turned out, we both had last Sunday off and the weather looked to be fine. We made a plan and headed to “No Name” Lake that morning. It’s a long drive for a day trip, but brother had to work Monday morning. We didn’t leave super early, as the best fishing would be as the sun was going down and for the first few hrs after dark. We had a simplistic idea of what we wanted to see for bottom structure, and a depth chart for the lake. Brother had purchased a Panoptic Fishing System last year that we really didn’t have much of a chance to try out. So, as we travelled, we decided on a likely spot that we knew we could get to without too much trouble. We arrived at our spot around noon and drilled about a thousand holes. At first we were much too deep, we moved around from hole to hole, looking for some structure at the 100ft level. We decided on a spot where the water dropped smooth and fast to 100’, there was a little bump up, then the bottom continued to drop sharply down to approx 300’. We agreed that this looked good. We set up the Popup Tent and positioned ourselves about 8’ apart with a couple holes between ourselves for the Panoptic Transducer. As best I could tell, my brother was dropping his lure right on top of the little mound, and I was dropping mine just over the deep side of the mound. Keep in mind that our lines were no more than 8’ apart. So with the Panoptic setup, we could see 100’ to the bottom and about 100’ in all directions. The Thermocline was at about 46’, this was where we concentrated our efforts (we also rattled the bottom often just to see if anyone was home down there). We could see fish at 25’ and a few at the 46’ mark. We figured the ones at 25 were whitefish and Lakers at 46. Throughout the day, my brother caught several fish at the 46’ mark, some of them swimming down from the 25’ mark to hit his lure. All Lakers in the 17-18” size. I had a few bites, but never hooked up. Each time my brother released a fish, he would look at me and say “ Sorry about your luck...”, I would mutter something to the effect of “F$&@ you”. So, long story longer, we fished until about 8:00, I still never had a fish, brother was fairly slimed up and stinking of Lake Trout ( what’s with the smell of Lake Trout anyway?). Brother decided it’s getting late and we need to think about wrapping up for the day, he says “ well, I’m going to pack up and clean fish, you can have my Honey Hole”. I told him where to go and how to get there.... He’s fishing on my left, but most of our stuff is on my right, so he moves and starts fumbling around the gear, kinda crowding me a bit. I move over 4’ to the Panoptic hole between our fishing holes ( like Hell am I going to his “Honey Hole”). He continued to bump and crowd me so I caved and moved to his spot, dropped my lure right to the bottom, twitched my rod a couple times and WHAMM, fish on.
The rest of this story can be viewed in the video, if you don’t want to watch us chat and fight a fish for 25 minutes, you can FF to about the last 4 min of the vid which is where we get our first glimpse of the fish.
https://youtu.be/JrKv8a_dzo4
RD
PS, when I finally landed my fish, I looked my brother straight in the eye and said “SORRY ABOUT YOUR LUCK”, he just about died laughing. I think all the fish he landed, all day, would have fit INSIDE my fish, lol. What a day :)
PPS, I used a Smoking Recipe that I found on this site many moons ago, I don’t remember who posted it, but thank you, whoever you are, it turned out FANTASTIC. I will try to post the recipe in the comments later.
As it turned out, we both had last Sunday off and the weather looked to be fine. We made a plan and headed to “No Name” Lake that morning. It’s a long drive for a day trip, but brother had to work Monday morning. We didn’t leave super early, as the best fishing would be as the sun was going down and for the first few hrs after dark. We had a simplistic idea of what we wanted to see for bottom structure, and a depth chart for the lake. Brother had purchased a Panoptic Fishing System last year that we really didn’t have much of a chance to try out. So, as we travelled, we decided on a likely spot that we knew we could get to without too much trouble. We arrived at our spot around noon and drilled about a thousand holes. At first we were much too deep, we moved around from hole to hole, looking for some structure at the 100ft level. We decided on a spot where the water dropped smooth and fast to 100’, there was a little bump up, then the bottom continued to drop sharply down to approx 300’. We agreed that this looked good. We set up the Popup Tent and positioned ourselves about 8’ apart with a couple holes between ourselves for the Panoptic Transducer. As best I could tell, my brother was dropping his lure right on top of the little mound, and I was dropping mine just over the deep side of the mound. Keep in mind that our lines were no more than 8’ apart. So with the Panoptic setup, we could see 100’ to the bottom and about 100’ in all directions. The Thermocline was at about 46’, this was where we concentrated our efforts (we also rattled the bottom often just to see if anyone was home down there). We could see fish at 25’ and a few at the 46’ mark. We figured the ones at 25 were whitefish and Lakers at 46. Throughout the day, my brother caught several fish at the 46’ mark, some of them swimming down from the 25’ mark to hit his lure. All Lakers in the 17-18” size. I had a few bites, but never hooked up. Each time my brother released a fish, he would look at me and say “ Sorry about your luck...”, I would mutter something to the effect of “F$&@ you”. So, long story longer, we fished until about 8:00, I still never had a fish, brother was fairly slimed up and stinking of Lake Trout ( what’s with the smell of Lake Trout anyway?). Brother decided it’s getting late and we need to think about wrapping up for the day, he says “ well, I’m going to pack up and clean fish, you can have my Honey Hole”. I told him where to go and how to get there.... He’s fishing on my left, but most of our stuff is on my right, so he moves and starts fumbling around the gear, kinda crowding me a bit. I move over 4’ to the Panoptic hole between our fishing holes ( like Hell am I going to his “Honey Hole”). He continued to bump and crowd me so I caved and moved to his spot, dropped my lure right to the bottom, twitched my rod a couple times and WHAMM, fish on.
The rest of this story can be viewed in the video, if you don’t want to watch us chat and fight a fish for 25 minutes, you can FF to about the last 4 min of the vid which is where we get our first glimpse of the fish.
https://youtu.be/JrKv8a_dzo4
RD
PS, when I finally landed my fish, I looked my brother straight in the eye and said “SORRY ABOUT YOUR LUCK”, he just about died laughing. I think all the fish he landed, all day, would have fit INSIDE my fish, lol. What a day :)
PPS, I used a Smoking Recipe that I found on this site many moons ago, I don’t remember who posted it, but thank you, whoever you are, it turned out FANTASTIC. I will try to post the recipe in the comments later.