inland laker help

[tapsboy68]

what do you guys use when fishing for picky inland lake trout. Last fall i caught a 23 lber but that is the only one i have caught. I troll for them with a dipsy diver and a spoon. The lake was an old mine pit and it gets to about 170' with lots of drop offs. I was thinking sucker minnows or something. Maybe someone can give me a few pointers. The arent like lake superior lakers.

[jkoegel]

I jig in the finger lakes here in NY for them all year long. Ice fishing too.
Sometimes they like live minnows. Most of the time I'll just vertical jig with a 4" white tube on a 1/2oz rattle head or a 5-6" white fluke. Or jig up some smelt, they love those.
I have an inflatable w/o a motor so no trolling here. No electronics either. I can imagine my catch would improve if I could mark them first.

[er-e-is]

Get a good locator and look for the fish around the drop offs and humps. They can be tight to the bottom so I suggest a high quality finder with lots of power, a Lowrance would be my choice. Once you find them drop a 3''-4'' white or chartruse tube, twister tail, bucktail or maribou jig down to them. Tip the jig with some bait. Sucker meat, minnow or sculpin, whatever is natural and legal in your area. The warmer the water, the deeper you will find them.

[tapsboy68]

thanks for the help. Havent been out to the lake lately,Salmon starting and working on my truck. but i will have to give it a try next week.

[canoga]

I live on cayuga lake in up state NY. I need a cane to get around, thus getting stonecats by wading and flipping stones and bending down trying to catch them is no longer as option..Any one know of other ways of catching them?

[WildOutdoorAddict]

Make a wire ring or loop from a metal coat hanger or some sort of heavy wire, since you have a hard time bending down to far you may need an old broom handle or such for a long handle.  Next take an old black T-shirt or other black material and sew up a sack and fit it around the wire loop. Flatten the loop out on the bottom side so it will lye flat on the creek bottom. Now  when you find a good looking flat rock that you want to check for stonecats, put the
black sack on the downward side of the rock against the current and gently lift one side of the rock as not to stir up to much dirt. Most of the time if you do this right the stoney will swim in the black sack since it is dark inside. The plus side is you dont have to stun them this way and they live a lot longer. Basically your making a long handle black net. Hope this helps.

[WildOutdoorAddict]

The next thing is to make some soda/beer can traps. string several on a cloths line so all the holes in the can are down and in the same position when lying flat. Spray paint the outsides brown, attach a name tag or whatever your state may require, (check your local laws) toss the string of cans into the lake and tye the end off on something. Iv'e never tried this one myself, but the stoneys swim into the opening on the cans for protection. I've made black sacks as mentioned in my post above, and they work very well, but this may work better for you. I love fishing with these when I can find them. Take care and good luck!

[Drifter_016]

Try trolling a set of cowbells with a herring/cisco or smelt trailer.
This works very well for me with the only difference being the size of the bait.
I like to use 2 to 3 pound whitefish as bait on our trophy waters.

[Raquettedacker]

Our open water trout season opens April 1st. The ice goes out around the last week of april. I like to be at the lake within a couple of days of that..We catch them from shore using stick baits (in white or silver) or large white tube jigs...