How To Deep Jig For Lake Trout, aka Mackinaw
Whether fishing open or hard water, few tactics are more effective at catching mackinaw than jigging. Mackinaw, also called lake trout, are found across the Northwest and have been introduced to high mountain lakes as well.
Living in depths up to 150 feet, many anglers struggle to connect with these fish using traditional trolling techniques. However, if you jig for them, these fish can be targeted with simple, inexpensive equipment.
What's the Rod/Reel Combo For Catching Mackinaw?
If you bass fish, you probably have the perfect mackinaw jigging rod in your rod locker. Six to seven-foot medium or medium-heavy power bass rods are perfect for targeting mackinaw. Both spinning and baitcasting reels will work, but if you have a choice, baitcasters with a higher gear-ratio will bring your fish up more quickly. Ice fisherman should search their rod lockers for equally rated rods in the 30 to 36-inch range.
More critically, all mackinaw reels need to be spooled with 10 to 20-pound braid with PowerPro being my personal favorite. The low elasticity of braid allows you to detect bites and set the hook when jigging at extreme depths.
Attached to the end of the braid I run a four to six-foot section of eight to 12-pound fluorocarbon leader using a blood knot. My favorite lures include Shimano's Lucanus jig in white/chartreuse, one ounce white tube jigs, or glow in the dark buzz bombs up to three inches. I tip the hooks of these jigs with bait like nightcrawlers, shrimp, herring, or chunks of northern pikeminnow.
An alternative approach for finicky mackinaw? Drop shot them by tying on a 1/0 dropshot hook 12 inches above a one to two-ounce cannonball lead. On the dropshot hook I run white tube jigs or my personal favorite, a three inch glow/chartreuse Powerbait Ripple Shad.
Pro-tip: In addition to bait, a healthy dose of Pro Cure Herring or anise scent doesn't hurt.
Getting The Bite Is Easy... Location is Not
Getting mackinaw to bite is the easy part, finding them is the hard part. Whether you are fishing open or hard water, look for drop offs, points, rises, or anywhere water feeds into the lake. I've caught mackinaw as deep as 200 feet and as shallow as 20 feet on the same day.
A good fish-finder will make locating mackinaw much easier. They show up exceptionally well on fish finders. I've had great success dropping on single marks and converting those to fish-in-the-boat. However, mackinaw will often form dense schools, and when you find those... the action can be nonstop.
In the absence of a fish finder, let your gear fall all the way to the bottom. Give it a couple cranks and start making short, sharp jigging motions moving the rod tip 18 to 24-inches each time.
Mackinaw rarely strike stationary lures and nearly always take it on the fall. During most takes, the line will simply go limp, or you'll feel a shudder as the fish grabs the lure. If your line or rod tip does anything unusual set the hook.
Using the Environment to Help you Catch Fish
As with most fish, you should plan to target mackinaw in the morning and evening, but I've pulled plenty of fish over the rails midday on bluebird days.
If you are fishing open water from a boat and there is a light wind, you can use this to help you drift an entire area. In high winds, you should deploy drift socks or use a trolling motor to keep your drift under one mile-per-hour.
For ice anglers, the key is to pre-drill a series of holes across depths and keep moving until you find fish.
Macks can grow to exceptional size, meaning well over 30 pounds in large, productive lakes. However, most fish will average three to eight pounds in size and offer the best eating. With a high oil content, these fish smoke extremely well. Many lakes are overpopulated with mackinaw and harvest is encouraged. This helps to increase overall size of the fish and reduces predation pressure on sport-fish.
Whether you are looking to pass a warm summer day on the water, or looking to get out of the house in dead of winter for some ice fishing, consider jigging for macks.
For more information, stop by your local North 40 Outfitters fishing department and we will get you setup and pointed in the right direction. If you're not near one of our stores, use the form below to submit a question and we will get right back to you.
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