Category Archives: Lake Trout

Winter Fishing Report – Lake Trout

Took my boat out on Sunday January 6th from about noon to 4:30pm and came in as the sun was setting. It was a nice day, not as windy as the week before and a little warmer. Surface water temps were showing 41degrees.

I started trolling but caught nothing, so I anchored up in 81feet of water between the north tower and the eastern shore. I fished with live shiners for 30 minutes without a hit so pulled anchor and moved much closer toward the tower and dam. I was marking fish as soon as I anchored, this time in about 90 feet of water. I hooked up with a laker as soon as my bait hit bottom. A 16 incher.

Zach M. from from our Facebook page texted me that he was in the area so I pulled up anchor and went and got him from the docks. I had never fished with Zach before, but if you look through the photos he’s posted on Facebook he certainly has shown that he knows how to fish. So I welcomed him aboard. He told me he had never caught a Lake Trout at Round Valley, maybe ever, and I told him I’d try and put us on fish.

Zach’s noodle pole doubles over under the weight of a 22.5inch Lake Trout.

This time I zoomed right over to the south dam. Some guys were leaving as we pulled up and they said they struck out. Uh oh?! I dropped the anchor in about 90 feet of water and in about 10 minutes I caught another laker. This one was a solid 21 inches. Fished a bit more but nothing doing so I pulled up and anchor and just moved a couple hundred feet along the dam.

Anchored again, now in 80 feet. I felt something toying with my line, swing and a miss. Right after that Zach’s pole doubles over and starts pumping. It’s hard to tell what size fish he’s got cause pole is so light but he finally manages to get the fish near the boat and he guides it into the net, head first.

Zach M. with his first Round Valley Lake Trout.

Zach’s fish measured 22.5 inches. A nice first laker indeed! We fished a little more but got nothing and the sun was going down so we called it quits. It was a nice outing and a please to have Zach on my boat, he’s welcome any time and so are you if i have open space. Cheers!

Lake Trout Season Closing This Sunday

Steve Welgoss Memorial Trout Tournament Results

Winning Entries:

Adult Division

Name	Trout	Size	Weight
Steve Herasymchuck	Rainbow	23 inches	5.72lbs.
Ron Degraff	Rainbow	22 inches	4.94lbs.
Dan Kurdyla	Rainbow	21 1/4 inches	4.94lbs.

Winning Entries:

Junior Division

Name	Trout	Size	Weight
Phil Gentile	Lake Trout	22inches	3.48lbs.
Ryan Holub	Lake Trout	20 1/2 inches	3.24lbs.
Brandon Holub	Lake Trout	20 3/4 inches	3.14lbs.

Fishing In The Rain – Prepare To Get Wet

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The plan was for my buddy Chris and I to fish ~8 hours in the rain from 6:30am to about 2:30pm, Nor’easter be damned. We started out the day at Lebanon Bait & Sport, picking up 4 dozen shiners…what the hell were we thinking? Also got a couple of Sutton Spoons. Our plan was to troll the spoons and shiners then drift to pick at lake trout.

As we motored away from the boat launch I realized in complete amazement that my Lowrance x135 was not turning on. I had problems with it two weeks ago at the RVTA tournament, but thought it was a battery issue. No such luck. Tried a soft reset, hard reset, wiring it directly to the battery, and finally punching the thing. It’s dead.

I’ve fished this reservoir many times, so we weren’t completely SOL but come on…really? I just had my motor fixed and now this?! We trolled a Sutton spoon and live shiners slow around the perimeter of the boat launch, over to the north tower, made a big circle and came back to the north tower. We didn’t get anything with this technique so we switched over to drifting.

Round Valley April 22 Laketrout Map

Our first drift, the wind was coming out of north so we set up a drift just to the west of the north tower, sent our lines to the bottom and waited. We were using 2 oz. barrel sinkers to keep our shiners on the bottom. Caught first fish out in the middle of nowhere in about 70feet of water. It’s the smaller of the two pictured and measured 18 inches. The rain didn’t really start until about 11am and for a few hours we thought we actually might stay dry!

Fishing in the rain

We didn’t stay dry. The rain came and just got harder and harder. We continued fishing though and for a few hours there the wind switched direction completely and came out of the southwest. It was at this time Chris caught the second Laketrout, a nice 20 incher that actually put up a decent fight.
NJ-Fishing-Lake-Trout

Even though we still had 2 dozen shiners in out livewell, at about 2:30pm our hands were raw and we were starving, so we headed in. It was a decent trip, besides a kayaker we spoke to at the north tower I only saw one other boat and they left fairly quickly. The yak had one laker when we spoke.

I guess I’ll be looking for a new sonar soon, maybe one with a GPS?! Up until now, I’ve been using a 99cent app on my iPhone called Compass+ I’ve actually been recording lat / long of catches and then placing them on Google Maps on my computer when I get home. It’s very cheap, but tedious as hell. OK, cheers, next time less rain please!

April 15 Fishing Report and RVTA Tournament Action

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I don’t know the winners of the April 2012 Round Valley Trout Association trout fishing tournament as of this writing but I’ll update as soon as I do. You can also visit the RVTA website at https://www.fishrvta.com/

I do know that a 17.2lb Lake Trout and a 15lb Laker were weighed in. The bigger fish was released. See the pics on Lebanon Bait & Sport‘s Facebook page.

I saw a few other big lakers get weighed in including the below from Rocco Catania which measured 25″ and weighed 6.6lbs. What a gut!

Rocco Catania displays his 6.6lb 25 inch Lake Trout, a personal best!

There were some monster Rainbow Trout weighed in as well. Below is John J. Wisniewski with a BIG rainbow.

J. Wisniewski with a BIG rainbow from the April 15th Round Valley Trout Association fishing tournament.

Many of these fish were caught trolling herring / shiner OR trolling spoons like the Sutton using down-riggers or leadcore lines.

One thing that really struck me was the number of BIG rainbows and lakers being weighed in, especially when compared to April 2011. Why the big difference?

Winning Brown or Rainbow from last year:
1 roger drew rainbow 5.76 23 1/4 92
2 roger drew brown 2.06 17 1/2 33
3 joe zjawiony rainbow 2.04 18 1/8 33
4 john wisniewski rainbow 1.94 17 1/8 31 (hey, this name looks familiar!)

Winning Lake Trout from last year:
1 donna fulgenz laker 2.6 19 3/8 42
2 ron degraff laker 2.34 19 7/8 37
3 dave plichta laker 2.32 19 1/2 37

Stay tuned to the RVTA website https://www.fishrvta.com/ for full results.