Best lures for laker?

[David Vadnais]

Hi guys,

I would like to know the best lures to catch laker.
Buck tail jig is good?

Thank's
David

[Shawndale1]

Everyone has their secret lure and I’m no expert through the ice but I have jigged quite a few up during soft water season using a big soft plastic swimbait. Like the ones the guys use for bass fishing. 3-5” long. Big leadhead.

[Hideebeez]

White tubes' willams spoons. Or airplane jigs. Even a jighead with a perch fillet skin on works great too

[Icemanvt]

White bucktails, sweedish pimples tipped with cut bait!

[thefishingweatherman]

White Storm brand swim shads work real well on Champ. They look like alewives, so the fish there are real keyed in on them it seems. On other lakes, I have had more success with berkly powerbait ripple shad plastics, with a 3/8 oz weighted hook. The perch and smelt patterns specifically. Northland tackle also makes a very realistic looking weighted perch swimshad, which works very well, but they are fairly pricey. I would mention swimshads in general seem to work better when you are jigging with a finder, and can reel up when you see a fish closing in. If you don't pull it away from them, and just keep jigging in their face, they seem to lose interest most of the time.

[Light liner]

White bucktails, sweedish pimples tipped with cut bait!

X2 on the white bucktails

[David Vadnais]

Thank you guys.

Probably the Northland Tuff tube could be a great tube for laker?

[TRT]

x2 Swedish pimples - active jigging, lakers also like to chase a bait. Lake George folks swear to reel once a laker appears an will get over taken.

[David Vadnais]

x2 Swedish pimples - active jigging, lakers also like to chase a bait. Lake George folks swear to reel once a laker appears an will get over taken.

Swedish pimles and Buck Tails are the great jigs for laker. 

Thank's TRT

[Ice-n-Snow]

I started out a few years ago with tubes and then tried swimbaits (based on the excellent advice of thefishingweatherman - he knows his stuff).  Last season I had good luck with spoons - Krocodiles, Little Cleos, and Cabela's Jig-N-Spoon.  I've also caught them on my own bucktail jigs.   

Lots of lures work well.  Try to roughly match the forage in size and color and don't let the fish get too good a look at your lure - keep it moving at all times.  Tubes can be jigged and work well on the drop.  Bounce bucktails off the bottom.  Swimbaits and spoons can be reeled away from the fish - many days they will chase and grab it. 

This season I'm going to experiment with streamer flies fished as droppers below spoons.  I also picked up some new spoons in Quebec that I'm looking forward to trying - lures I've never seen sold in the US.

Experimenting is half the fun.  Good luck. 

[IceFlagger]

Tubes and spoons! Having a flasher helps big time too. Some lakers will chase spoons from 80ft to 10 then strike. Good luck.

[Cub]

Thank you guys.

Probably the Northland Tuff tube could be a great tube for laker?

That tube will kill them! Just make sure you have a high quality hook.

[David Vadnais]

That tube will kill them! Just make sure you have a high quality hook.

Ok thank's Cub

[Ice-n-Snow]

Just make sure you have a high quality hook.

X2  Especially with tubes and swimbaits.  Lakers seem to be able to grab and hold soft plastics without getting hooked - they have hard mouths and perhaps they are just grabbing the tail.  In any case, I seem to lose fewer fish with spoons.  With swimbaits and tubes, I sometimes rig a stinger hook. 

[David Vadnais]

Tubes and spoons! Having a flasher helps big time too. Some lakers will chase spoons from 80ft to 10 then strike. Good luck.

Thank's Iceflagger!
Yes I have a Vexilar FLX-28. 

[David Vadnais]

X2  Especially with tubes and swimbaits.  Lakers seem to be able to grab and hold soft plastics without getting hooked - they have hard mouths and perhaps they are just grabbing the tail.  In any case, I seem to lose fewer fish with spoons.  With swimbaits and tubes, I sometimes rig a stinger hook.

Good thank you Ice-n-snow 

[VTMatt]

Rattle spoons tipped with minnows, swimbaits (don't be afraid to go huge, alewives and ciscos get pretty big)  bucktails (airplane jigs are very cool) and big tube and twister tail jigs. Make sure your hook and rod are stout. Mono/copoly line work, but I went to braid and fluoro leader.  Braid sucks in freezing temps but has a way better hookset because of its low stretch rate.

Lakers will chase almost as fast as you can reel on a small ice reel. I use a larger reel for capacity. As soon as a fish shows on the flasher, reel up fast and pay attention to its reaction. Change up jigging styles and lure size until you can consistently pick out the aggressive fish.

[spot]

Big spoons- red-whites, lakertakers, little cleo's: Drp them to the bottom and let them rest, then lift the up and let rest again. Jig up and down, creating a big commotion on the bottom, then let rest again. Then jig again and let fall some, then jig again, and then reel up as fast as you can. Lakers and walleyes will often chase it right up to the hole.

[David Vadnais]

I started out a few years ago with tubes and then tried swimbaits (based on the excellent advice of thefishingweatherman - he knows his stuff).  Last season I had good luck with spoons - Krocodiles, Little Cleos, and Cabela's Jig-N-Spoon.  I've also caught them on my own bucktail jigs.   

Lots of lures work well.  Try to roughly match the forage in size and color and don't let the fish get too good a look at your lure - keep it moving at all times.  Tubes can be jigged and work well on the drop.  Bounce bucktails off the bottom.  Swimbaits and spoons can be reeled away from the fish - many days they will chase and grab it. 

This season I'm going to experiment with streamer flies fished as droppers below spoons.  I also picked up some new spoons in Quebec that I'm looking forward to trying - lures I've never seen sold in the US.

Experimenting is half the fun.  Good luck.

Experimenting is always funny.
Ice-n-snow wich are your new spoons picked up in Quebec?
Made in Quebec?
The tubes are about 2 1/2- 3'' on headjig 1/2 oz?

[spot]

If you don't pull it away from them, and just keep jigging in their face, they seem to lose interest most of the time.

To me it's like they're lazy, and curious about the movement of the lure, and only become interested in it when they see it getting away.

I tend to hammer the bottom hard, just to create a commotion and then the time I'll get the bite is on the way up, sometimes all the way to the top.

[shadylane]

I don't have a flasher (would love one but just not in the cards right now) I've never iced a laker before but have gone out a few times for them.  sometimes feels like I'm jigging in the dark.  Does anyone have luck without a flasher?  And do you still pound the bottom, jig, and then reel up blindly?  Get it to the hole and drop it back down to start all over?

[Hideebeez]

I think if you fish with no electronics try and fish shallower 20to 40 foot depths.  If you go to willoughby and plop dowb 120 feet and only fish the bottom its a recipe for skunks.  You need to see those fish react to the bait.  Tip ups make a great option for those without electronics.  Even the rod and reel types

[JMailbox8]

I don't have a flasher (would love one but just not in the cards right now) I've never iced a laker before but have gone out a few times for them.  sometimes feels like I'm jigging in the dark.  Does anyone have luck without a flasher?  And do you still pound the bottom, jig, and then reel up blindly?  Get it to the hole and drop it back down to start all over?

The key to fishing lakers without electronics is to find structure like sunken islands and pound bottom for several minutes, then keep moving until you get hits. If you can see them down the hole in shallower water, it then becomes a game of finesse. Smaller lakes will probably be easier than Champlain to find them.

[spot]

  Does anyone have luck without a flasher?  And do you still pound the bottom, jig, and then reel up blindly?  Get it to the hole and drop it back down to start all over?

I've never had a flasher, except for those shiny, chrome-plated steel sinkers we used to call flashers. I don't go into it blindly. I look for places (as JMailbox says above) with structure, like a point or a reef or a flat where there's 60-ish feet of water surrounded by much deeper water, or places where there are unusual turns or upswellings in the currents. These are the places where the fish like to be.

Having the electronics can definitely help you find fish, but it doesn't devalue understanding of how the fish behave in your favorite water body, or any water body for that matter.

The electronics have never been in my budget, so I just try to learn as much about the fish and the water I'm looking for them in as I can.

[JMailbox8]

Shadylane, do you have navionics? That would probably prove more useful than a flasher. Finding the structure is the biggest thing.

[Ice-n-Snow]

Experimenting is always funny.
Ice-n-snow wich are your new spoons picked up in Quebec?
Made in Quebec?
The tubes are about 2 1/2- 3'' on headjig 1/2 oz?

I got the spoons at Latulipe Chasse et Peche in Quebec City.  I think they are CAMI brand. 

For tubes, I've had success with 3.5 inch (89 mm) Gitzits Originals with 3/8 oz. (10.6 gram) internal jigheads.  I think the jigheads are Strike King brand.

[thefishingweatherman]

When it comes to laker jigging, the value of a flasher vs no flasher has been debated on here before, so I won't totally rehash that. Can you catch lakers without a finder? Absolutely! However, in those instances I think it helps to jig with something with some scent, or real minnows/bait so the presentation stands up to closer inspection. In my experience, you can target structure, but even the fishiest looking spots on navionics some days don't have fish down there at all, as a finder can verify, and you're left scratching your head wondering where they went... So off you go popping holes trying to find them. If you're jigging without a finder, you will be tempted to spend a good bit more time at each hole, cause you're never quite sure if they're there or not, and you want to give it a fair shake. A finder is an investment, (though there are some real steals out there these days) but the combination of being able to more easily locate fish, even on proven structure, and also do the "reel-up" technique on the fish, will definitely catch you more fish on the ice in the long run.

[shadylane]

Shadylane, do you have navionics? That would probably prove more useful than a flasher. Finding the structure is the biggest thing.

I don't have navionics on my phone but I use it on the computer to get an idea of whats going on and approximately where

[Icemanvt]

I've had them follow my lure from the bottom (in 60 fow) and catch them right under the ice.  I think jigging for lakers is the most fun!  Bounce bottom like a crazy man and reel like a crazy man!  They love alot of movement.

[spot]

I've never argued against using a flasher. The idea of doing that seems silly to me. I've said (truly) that I don't have one, and that it's unlikely that I'll get one. The main reason for that is the expense. There are a lot of things in line ahead of it that use up my budget before I ever get to considering getting a flasher. I'm also a bit stubbornly prideful about my ability to read water. It's mainly my inability to justify the expense, though.

A flasher will tell you whether the water you're over has fish in it or not, and that can save you a lot of fishing in water where they aren't. Being able to read the water and predict likely hotspots will eliminate a lot of that too, but we're talking about a fish-whisperer being 90% certain that there will be fish in a particular spot and a flasher telling you straight up: yes, there are, or, no there aren't. It'll also tell you their depth, size, numbers and, with a really, super deluxe model, their favorite color. 

It's like about 20 years ago, power-carving became all the rage. People were telling me: Randy, you can't carve without power nowadays. I would generally smile and nod, and go about my day, allowing them to think what they wanted because, of course you can carve without power tools! People have been doing it for thousands of years! Power tools, which I do use by the way (I have quite a lot of them, actually- these people just happened to see me carving with a knife) , add different dimensions to what you can do, and being able to use both the old and the new ways is really the best way to go.

Fishing is not entirely different. There is always the new thing, and there have always been the old things, and both have their place in the tackle box (except those ridiculous singing bass plaques that they sell- please make those stop!). If you can afford one, a flasher will take you from that point of being 90% sure you're not wasting your time fishing over empty water to where you can look at the screen and see the fish that are there, or the lack thereof.

Peace.