Photo: Knepp Timothy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Salvelinus namaycush · also mackinaw, togue

How to catch Lake trout

Lake trout feed in 34–60°F water and bite best at 44–54°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 21 waters; in October they are at their peak in Maine fresh water, New Hampshire fresh water, Vermont fresh water and 17 more.

35 pts · trophy at 36"Feeds 34–60°FBest 44–54°FIn season nowLakeReservoir

About

The char of the deep, cold lakes — Superior, the Finger Lakes, Flathead, Flaming Gorge, Tahoe, the Alaska interior — grey and cream-spotted, slow-growing and long-lived. Forty-pounders come from the Gorge and the Great Lakes.

How to fish it

Shallow at ice-out and through the ice; deep below the thermocline all summer — downriggers or a heavy jig on the humps in 60 to 120 feet.

What it eats

tube jigs and bucktailsspoons trolled deepdead cisco or sucker meat through the ice

Live bait for it

Minnows (fatheads, shiners)Hooked lightly through the lips or behind the dorsal on a #6 to #2 hook under a slip bobber for crappie, perch and walleye; a big golden shiner on a 2/0 to 4/0 for largemouth, pike and stripers.