Lake Trout questions...

[Mega Byte]

Why I was kid fishing with my dad on the big lake back in the 80s, it seems like we rarely caught lakers.  It was all silver fish.  Coho, steelhead and kings.  We never targeted lakers.  I'm sure if you targeted them on bottom, you could pull them in on a regular basis.  It seems that lately we've been catching a lot of lakers in our King spread.  We've taken 7 in the last 2 trips.  For your guys that have been doing this a while, are you noticing more suspended laker hits than in the past?  Just wondering if there are that many more lakers than in the past, or they have move up for more food?  I'm assuming it's the increase in plants and their numbers are up.

Second laker question...are there different strains of lakers in the lake?  I filleted one that had grey/white flesh and another of the same size that was almost as orange as a coho.  What's the difference?

[jdh]

I'll say it's been very common for the lakers to suspend until the water warms up a bit.  I've caught them offshore too on one and two color lead cores.  The overall numbers should be way up to compared to 20-30 years ago.  There are a few strains.  Most common strain on the south side of Lake Michigan has been the Seneca Lake strain recently.  Some plants have been Lewis Lake, and Klondike Reef strains also.  A lot of Lake Superior strain fish have also been stocked up north.

Colors could also indicate what the fish have been feeding on.  Any fish feeding on mysis shrimp recently would be really orange.