Lake trout

Where they live: Lake Superior, and many deep, cold, clean northern lakes. The Superior National Forest is the interior the DNR tells you to start with.

When folks chase them: Trout lakes and Lake Superior are their own chapters, not the May fishing opener and not the stream calendar.

Lake trout are the native char that picked the deep rooms and then refused to explain themselves.

Brook trout are the other native. Both are char. Brown trout came from Germany, rainbows from the west coast of this continent, both of them late in the 1800s, and they are a different conversation with different water. I still hear somebody at a Grand Marais counter call every spotted fish a brookie. I have done it too, once, and the person who corrected me was right to enjoy it. (Minnesota DNR — trout)

What to throw

The trout page on this site that we can shop is a Blue Fox Vibrax. The gear note already says that spinner has a history in trout boxes. That is the listing. It is a cast-day spinner, not a lead-core program.

We do not have a dedicated lake-trout spoon, a downrigger, or a trolling diagram. Leaving them off is the point. The card is in the boat kit and the longer tray is Spinners and cast days.

Rod & reel

The DNR’s species page does not hand us a length or a power for inland lake trout, so this page will not invent a 8-foot medium and call it tradition. Bring a spinning rod that can throw a small spinner if that is the plan, and a heavier stick only if you are actually in the kind of water that asks for one. The rulebook will tell you the method before the catalog will.

Where in Minnesota

Lake trout live in Lake Superior and in many deep, cold, clean northern lakes. The trout-fishing guide says start with lunker lake trout in the interior lakes, then go bother the brook trout in Superior National Forest creeks — two errands, two fish. Northeastern Minnesota is the lake-trout sentence. The North Shore is Superior itself, plus the streams. (Minnesota DNR — trout, trout fishing)

Our North Shore page already lists lake trout. That is the room we have. The interior lakes are a LakeFinder question, not a pin we dropped on a napkin. (LakeFinder)

A splake, if you meet one, is a cross between a lake trout and a brook trout. The DNR says they are stocked in some northern lakes. They are not a third species we are going to give a fake page. (Minnesota DNR — trout)

There is something quiet about a lake that stays cold enough, all summer, to hold a char. People drive past Duluth for that and then talk about the diner. The diner is fine. The cold water is the reason.

Seasons, including the ice

Do not borrow the stream calendar. Statewide inland streams and southeastern streams have their own dates. Lake trout in lakes, and anything in Minnesota’s water of Lake Superior, sit in different sections. Read those before you wind a drag.

• Trout in lakes — seasons and limits
• Lake Superior — seasons and limits
• Stream versus lake, in the trout rules

Ice tip, from the DNR’s own ice page: unless you are fishing very large fish — they name northern pike or lake trout — a 6-inch auger is enough. Lake trout are the reason the bigger hole exists. That is the hardwater advice they printed. It is not a depth, and it is not a lure. No ice is a promise. Read the safety notes on that same page before you drive out. (Minnesota DNR — learn to ice fish)

The education ice guide also says you can catch trout any time of day, in the same breath as northerns. Again: presence and timing, not a spoon size. (Minnesota DNR — ice fishing guide)

The rules

Trout water can require a trout stamp on top of the fishing license. The license counter is the DNR’s, not a guess from a bait-shop whiteboard.

• Fishing licenses
• Fishing seasons
• Trout fishing in Minnesota
• Special regulations, by water