Ice Fishing For Lake Trout

[LunkerB]

Met some buddies at Twin lakes at 5:00 am. Headed out on the ice at 5:30 and started getting the holes ready. There was no wind on the lake which made it really nice out there. The vexilars were saying 15 feet of water at our first holes. No bites. Started to drink moonshine to warm up. Moved out farther on the ice and we drilled a grid pattern and used depth finders to map out a ridge that dropped from 20 to 30+ feet on 3 sides. As we started fishing here a older man came out of a ice fishing shed about 50 yards away wrestling a 30 incher. It was an amazing sight as he was an old white haired man in flannel and the scene looked like it was straight out of a ice fishing movie set in the 1920's. That did give me some more confidence that we might catch a nice one. We had nice fish coming through our holes but they were being very tight lipped and we only caught one 10" in the first couple hours. My buddy had a nice one messing with his line but he could never get a hook set on the fish. He finally became tired of this and went to do some exploring by heading to shallow water to drill more holes. I stayed back and decided to try his hole that he abandoned. It was the best decision of my fishing life and not so much for him. After 15 minutes of bouncing a white tube jig tipped with sucker meat off the bottom I received a light tug followed by a big boy TUG. At this point I was having a conversation and had been fishing while partying and had not had a bite all morning so was very surprised. After a 10 minute battle that included some strong runs and dives I was able to bring this beast out from under the ice. We took some crude measurements and pictures and dropped the fish back into the hole and he took off strong. The fish was between 32-34 inches and around 9-11 pounds. It was the first lake trout that I had caught since moving up in June. Beginners luck I guess. It doesnt hurt to go ice fishing with guys with 20+ years experience!!!

[rangerman]

Awesome laker, I have a trip like that on my list of to do's.

[Terrierman]

That fish is lucky you caught him instead of me.

[bs1827]

No bites. Started to drink moonshine to warm up.

Nice fish! Little early to be hitting the lightning wasn't it!?

[LunkerB]

I think I got lucky catching him Terrierman! bs1827 It was still dark at the boat ramp when we got out the schnapps. The shine was amazing to have on the ice. When I snagged my buddies spot the jar was pushed into the shavings next to the hole. Never will there be a more inviting ice fishing spot!

[Kayser]

Having eaten lake trout before, I'm curious how many small ones came home? One of the best fish I've had.