Dialed In for Lake Trout at Laurentian Lodge

On a recent trip on Flack Lake, north of Elliot Lake, Ontario, we had the good fortune to dial in early for lake trout. Our host for this trip was Laurentian Lodge – a fantastic family and pet friendly facility with clean spacious cottages, dining and reception facilities, hotel rooms, tennis court, boat launch and docking, a small beach and a beautiful waterfall to swim in.

Flack is a beautiful blue crystal clear oligotrophic lake with visibility close to 15 feet. Early July surface water temperatures were 73 F with bright sunny skies overhead. We initially had set a spread of two downriggers at 35 and 50 feet, one with an orange J-11 Rapala body bait (35 feet) and one with a blue and silver spoon. A third rod was set to run a Dipsy Diver at around 25-30 feet with a purple and black spoon. This hit first over ~ 50 feet of water with a small 15 inch lake trout. We raised the two downriggers to 28 and 32 feet and switched to darker black and purple spoons (with white pearlescent backs) and trolled over 40 to 60 foot of water – this had us dialed in and limiting out in just less than two hours.

A second overcast day with no wind saw us limit out early with blue and silver and green and silver spoons at 30 to 35 feet. Fish size picked up somewhat with three in the 18 to 20 inch range. These were oven baked to feed the group later that day. It was interesting to note that one of the trout was stuffed with three 3”-4” inch rock bass. A late evening troll saw seven more caught and released. The largest we caught was 21 inches but larger fish can be found, with pictures of a 46 lbs beast taken in May posted in the lodge.

Smallmouth bass are also present in the lake although getting into any fish of decent size seemed impossible with the large amount of smaller fish present pouncing on any offering. Our neighbors had better luck catching some larger fish in deeper water (25 to 30 feet) off rocky structure. Below the waterfalls in the river flowing from Flack to Mikel lake there are lots of rock bass and small smallmouth bass, perfect for younger children.

Our final day was a side trip to Quirk Lake, about 15 km southeast of Laurentian Lodge. Quirk is a large, deep lake just north of Elliot Lake (surface temperature 71 F, 12 feet of visibility) with many islands and a spectacular set of rock cliffs. Downrigger depths of 70 to 80 feet produced six healthy lake trout ranging from 20 to 24 inches. Later in the day we were able to sight fish for northern pike in a shallow bay at the mouth of the Serpent River.

The staff and facilities at Laurentian Lodge are truly excellent and the fishing was great, well worth the drive!