Quick Lake Ontario Jigging Video

[Pete Collin]

 

[mlammerhirt]

Lake Trout??

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[Pete Collin]

Yes. Once I got a small Atlantic salmon, and another time i got a nice Chinook while jigging. But I target the lake trout. 

[wolc123]

That looks pretty cool. I got a little taste for how much fun it is with a couple caught while jigging myself.  The first was up on the Niagara bar maybe 25 years ago in April.  We had been getting a few assorted browns, coho, and rainbows trolling stickbaits in shallow. 

I didnt see why they wouldn't go for a jig, so I went out a little deeper and drifted over the bar with a black and white 5/16 oz bucktail jig, on 10 lb mono, tipped with a perch minnow.  A big laker hit that and it took around 15 minutes to land on the light line.  That was one of those unforgettable fights and I always wanted to try it again some day but havent had the chance.

The other one was about 5 years ago while I was ice fishing on a small, deep Adirondack lake where my in-laws built their retirement home. It was last stocked with Lakers about 10 years prior and very few remained but they were big.  

A nieghbor had hooked several the winter before but none would fit thru the hole and he lost them trying.  I had been catching the usual dozen or so smallmouth bass and perch or two that morning on tip ups and a hand line with a jigging Rapala. All of those were very docile in the cold water barely putting up a tussle.

I knew I had something big when the heavy laker started peeling out the drag on my little ultralight ice fishing outfit, after hitting a small jigging Rapala tipped with a perch minnow head on the center hook.  It took me at least 20 minutes to subdue it enough to try and squeeze it thru that little hole with a little ultralight and 6 pound test.

It had fought so much and undergone so much trauma on the squeeze, that I didnt think it would survive the return. I gutted it and found someone's Senko in the stomach.  I dont remember the fish tasting very good when we cooked it, sometime later.

I had tried for years to hook one of those on the open water there without so much as a bite. Apparently, that one had broken off on some bass fisherman, based on the plastic bait I found in its belly.  I think the last of them is likely passed on now, because I haven't heard of anyone hooking one in several years.

Edited July 29, 2021 by wolc123

[ncountry]

Nice! I like the 5 gallon pail as a drag. A method I used alot in the past when I fished out of my old v bottom. 

[Pygmy]

On 7/27/2021 at 8:33 PM, Pete Collin said:

 

Is that a Hopkins hanging from his jaw  ??

 

Thanks for sharing..I have done a lot of jigging for lakers in the Finger Lakes, but never on the Great Lakes...

Once I found out how easy  and fun it was to jig them, I put my heavy trolling gear into semi-retirement

[Pete Collin]

2 hours ago, ncountry said:

Nice! I like the 5 gallon pail as a drag. A method I used alot in the past when I fished out of my old v bottom. 

I normally run 2 drift bags.  But on a previous trip, a frayed knot made me lose one of them.  So I improvised until I could sew a second one out of an old cloth shower curtain.

[First-light]

Nice video. I grew up jigging Bass and Bluefish on Long Island sound. Diamond jigs did the trick, AVA 47 was the most popular. 

[Pygmy]

5 hours ago, First-light said:

Nice video. I grew up jigging Bass and Bluefish on Long Island sound. Diamond jigs did the trick, AVA 47 was the most popular. 

Diamond jigs work just fine for lakers, too ....