Mountain Lakers

With the arrival of summer, it’s time for me to head to the mountains where there are all kinds of terrific fishing opportunities. The lake trout is my favorite mountain fish to chase for a number of reasons. The weather is normally great, the scenery outstanding, and the fish are always biting. Just get the right hook down to their depth and I can almost guarantee that a lake trout will take a run at it.

Out of the mountain lakes I fish that offer lake trout, I would say Pyramid Lake near Jasper, AB, is my favourite. With hot weather these lakers like to hide out in deeper water and on Pyramid, there just isn’t a lot of it. Most of the fish will be found in water over 40 feet deep, and locating those spots is the first goal. Then, once you get some form of bait down to that depth you are in the game. The way I like to do that is to troll a 2.5 oz. or a 3 oz. bottom bouncer with a rainbow coloured flatfish trailed about 8 to 10 feet behind. I slow troll it and normally have great success with this method.

Dragging a streamer fly or small to medium sized spoon behind a spinner rig off that same bottom bouncer will also do the trick. When I get a bite, I note exactly where it happened, because in all likelihood, there will be more where that one came from. If the lake is dead calm, I have also had a ton of success vertically jigging a small Williams’s wobbler spoon. The lake trout love them, but it is near impossible to get this type of spoon down deep enough on anything but a calm day. I’ve caught a ton of lakers using these techniques and as a matter of fact I’m headed to the mountains to try my luck again the moment I’m finished this paragraph. Give it a try!