Trout Pursuit………

Pete & Ken spent the week chasing after lake trout using downriggers and spoons. I thought this was a good opportunity to do some research on where these fish seem to go after the initial “shallow water bite”. Pete was fully rigged with some great downriggers and a speed and temperature probe which gave readings from whatever depth you happened to be fishing. Seems the fish were pretty scattered, which kind of made sense. We caught several in the VBay area at around the 35 foot level. I was noticing that there were few suspended but they seemed to be around structure of some sort……points, dropoffs, etc. I spent the day with Pete & Ken and we poked around in the West Arm where Pete caught this 5 #’er. At 35 feet water temps were around the 49 degree mark……..further into Trout Hole 2 the temps were quite cold….about 44 degrees, which Pete felt was too cold. In the end no lunkers were caught but Pete & Ken ended up with some good eaters……..also the experience of catching a handful of walleye on downriggers. One interesting observation that Pete made was the possible connection to last spring’s fantastic shallow water bite in VBay and the forest fire that scorched parts of Trout Hole 2 the season before. Increased acidity causing a movement out of the area? Makes for a good theory, especially since the similar spring conditions this year did not yield nearly the number of lunkers as ’08. Something to mull over …………..