Finally got out today for a while this morning. Momma and I hit the water for a couple hours before lunch, got off to a slow start but then got dialled in in short order. Boated about a dozen trout and this nice 83cm fish. Momma wanted to try one in the smoker so we kept it.

Met a couple older boys at the dock when we were loading up and they were awesome older gentlemen yup that are big time into their fishing but never been out for lakers so I am taking them out in the morning for a fish,, they seemed to be pretty stoked bout it they just about hugged me lol,, should be fun..

Nice fish!!!

holy crap that's a nice fish !

Nice trout Walleyes! We just got back from a trip up to East Trout Lake, hooked a few LT but none that big. Brought home our limit on walleye and the Jacks went back in the water.

I'm convinced now I'm going to buy a down rigger....can you give me any advice on what I should buy. Thx!

I am Scotty man myself Tuc,, and you can get into the smaller electrics like I have for around $500.00 a unit,, sometimes on kijiji even cheaper.  Definite have to when going after lakers.

Was out again today and again boated over a dozen fish with 3 over 75,, all nice fat pigs.. All fish today were deep, top fish at 83 feet on anchovy in a Rys Davis anchovy head and blue silver #5 Coyote spoon at 93 feet, not doable without downriggers..

10-4 on the bait Tuc,, small 6" anchovy in the holder with a 5' lead behind a 6" okee flasher. Yesterday chartreuse head and flasher were the ticket today purple haze in front of purple flasher. I run the small flashers so they don't give so much resistance to the fish,, gives more action to the rod. I also run a large ford fender off of the downriggers ball on one side,, what's known as a dummy flasher rig,, that way when the rigger clip releases it's just you and the fish.

Nice trout Walleyes! We just got back from a trip up to East Trout Lake, hooked a few LT but none that big. Brought home our limit on walleye and the Jacks went back in the water.

I'm convinced now I'm going to buy a down rigger....can you give me any advice on what I should buy. Thx!

First let me say, you don't need downriggers to catch lakers at Cold Lake. You can use 3 way rigs, deeper divers, jet divers, pink Lady's etc and they will catch you just as many Lake trout at Cold Lake.

That being said if you would still like downriggers your first choice is manual or electric.  Walker and Scotty make good manual downriggers. When you look at them you will realize that it does not cost a lot more to go electric and one of the Walker manual riggers can be converted to electric latter. If you’re going electric, which is much nicer the 3 big choices are Cannon, Scotty, and Walker. The Cannon are the most expensive by far but have the ability to be controlled by a Humminbird fish finder which can be good and bad. Good in that it can pull you Cannon ball before it snags up on the bottom but bad if it drops like a rock after going over a ledge, as the rigger does not bring up or let out line on the fishing reel. The West out here is dominated by Scotty. You will find parts just about everywhere and Scotty support is very good from what I have heard. The one disadvantage of the Scotty system is the clutch release system for letting down the ball and the fact they are very large and take up a ton of space. The Walker system is also very good and are made out in Ontario where they dominate the great lake area. The reason I went with the Walker system is that I'm a bit of a toy guy and the Walkers have a temperature probe option and a TV camera option. I have one of each and have caught extra fish because of them. With the temp probe I have been able to find cold incoming springs and thermoclines that have certainly put me on fish that no one would have guessed were there. The TV camera gives you something to do when the fish aren't biting but is most useful for letting you know how your lures are running, esp. in current areas. If you going with or against a current your GPS speed will be useless in letting you know how your lures are working. The camera is also useful in letting you know if the fish are pulling up short, in which case you need to change your lure, or they are not around at all in which case it's time to change areas or depth.

Again you can catch many, many, many lake trout at Cold Lake without down riggers but they are fun toys. I also use my downriggers for pike and walleye fihsing.

Hope that helped.

They certainly are not necessary but it sure makes it nice.. As far as I'm concerned they are the only way to go. When you want your bait at 50' it's at 50', you want it at 150, it's at 150 no guessing involved. Another reason is the release, when a fish strikes you are not packing extra hardware holding back on the fish. For me this is very important,, it's not just about cranking them in its about getting as much enjoyment out of the fight as you can. I also use medium action 9' HMX Fenwick rods with medium sized Ambasidor reels to heighten the action.

So I guess nececesity would be a personnel choice,, for me they are..

Not really Tuc,, anything will do. Personally I prefer long rods for rigging. The longer the rod the more stored tension you can keep in it, this is very important for sticking hits. With a nice long rod you can put a huge bend in it so when the line releases from the clip it will retain tension on the hook and keep it set.. Again very important.

You can see my laker set up clearly in this pic and the rod with the stored energy ready to strike on the release.

Do you need a special rod to use these down riggers?

It is the one place you do NOT want a high end graphite rod with a fast tip. Typically you want a long rod with fibreglass or fibreglass graphite composite at least 8.5-9 feet with a slow action so you can load up lots of bend to take the slack out of the line when the fish hits. High modulus graphite rods are also not made to spend hour after hour with a large bend and under heavy load. As cheap as downrigger rods are I would get one. I think mine cost about $50.00 (Shakespeare® Ugly Stik® Big Water Downrigger Rods).

I agree with Walleyes, the nice thing about riggers is not having to have extra stuff on the line, just you and the fish. That is why I use my downriggers for walleyes instead of bottom bouncers. That being said things like Walkers TripZ's Divers are light and unlike the Lure Jenson jet divers release when a fish hits. They also do not offer any more resistance than a small flasher after the fish hits but still gets you down deep enough to catch lakers all season long.


Not Saying you should not get riggers, after all I have them, and they are fun toys but you don't need them to catch fish in Cold Lake. If the cost of riggers has been keeping you away don't let it.


Have a great season

Sumo Laker