nestor falls laketrout

[LundDriver]

My wife and I will be in Nestor for two weeks (last May, first June). We know LOTW very well from Nestor to Rabbit Il. Have never tried laketrout. Any suggestions on the better lake, Whitefish bay or Crow. If whitefish, is the portage capable of handling an 18 ft. boat? Have not seen the portage since it was rollers. Looking for numbers to CPR. Any tecniques to suggest? Thanks, Al W.

[rpieske]

I would definitely fish Crow Lake for the trout. I believe the numbers are greater. The portage from Turtle Lake to Whitefish was still operating most of the time last summer. However, if the water is low it could turn out to be a job cranking your boat over. It would be easier to just pull your boat, drive up to Vic & Dot's and put in there. You'll save a lot of gas doing it that way. Send me an email or a PM before you go up. I live in Nestor Falls from May 15th till mid September. I'll give you my phone number in Nestor Falls and maybe we can meet for breakfast and I can mark up a map for you. Trout will still be relatively shallow that time of year. What camp are you staying at?

[Dipstick]

Whitefish Bay has larger trout. Crow is OK but trout are smaller. If you haven't been on Crow, give it look-see. It is a pretty lake with crystal clear water. Lots of hidden reefs. Get a map from the bait stores in Nestor Falls. Get the one that is made locally there, better for identifying the reefs! Don't go without a map, easy to get turned around. GPS/sonar are recommended. (Same for Whitefish Bay). Crow has very little boat traffic. In May, during the week, you may or may not encounter 1 boat! Fish will be shallow. In May, we troll around islands that drop off into deep water. Watch for bait balls and troll thru them.

The lift into Whitefish Bay can be a real pain. The old log roller system was much easier to use. The new system has a steel cradle that you drive onto. It has a cable system that runs between a set of tracks. The last time we used it 3 years ago, the cables got twisted, the unit weighed a ton, and two us had coronaries trying to crank the boat over and then worried the whole day about getting back over it. My choice would be to trailer over to one of the lodges on Whitefish Bay and launch there. There is a gov't launch just past Vic & Dot's, but the launch is not the greatest. I suggest Vic & Dots, good launch, not expensive to launch. However, it is about a 6 mile ride to where most people fish for trout. An easier approach may be to try the other lodges around Sioux Narrows or the gov't launch there. Then you have a short run back down south to the trout areas.

My favourite lure for trolling there in the Spring is the 8" Williams Whitefish Warbler in gold and silver. I went from downriggers to using a 3-way with 6 oz weight, with line counter reels. Less work, easier to control depths, more time spent fishing than re-rigging.

The guides there will hook up ciscos and drop them on the flats and then go to shore and sit there during shore lunch. Look for little piles of rocks on the shore to see where the locals set up for this. This is a good area to troll thru, just not when the guides are there with their clients. They will take the ciscos out several hundred feet from shore before dropping them. Easy to snag their lines.

READ THE REGULATIONS CAREFULLY. THE TWO LAKES HAVE DIFFERENT REGULATIONS.

Hope this helps. Tight Lines.

[LundDriver]

Thank you for the info. I will have to look into a better map for Crow as the one I have is too small for a lake that size. Not enough detail and my GPS chips don't cover Crow. Less than two months and counting. Can hardly wait. Thanks again.