This simple rig catches walleye, panfish and trout like crazy—and you’re not using it!

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LAKE TROUT

Scott Gardner
Scott Gardner

Speaking of the north country, let’s not forget about the ubiquitous lake trout (above) that call so many of the region’s crystal-clear, picture-postcard waters home. My buddy and fishing guide Matt Benson has earned major points with clients using the drop-shot technique for lakers at Booi’s Fly-In Lodge and Outpost on northwestern Ontario’s Trout Lake.

“I had one day last summer when, in two and a half hours, my guests caught 22 lake trout by drop-shotting, and we didn’t move the boat more than a few hundred feet,” Benson says. “It was so much fun. The fish were on the bottom in 80 to 110 feet of water, so I put either a 1½- or two-ounce sinker on everyone’s lines.”

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As Benson well knows, any time you find lake trout swimming close to the bottom, they’re perfectly positioned to hit a drop-shot rig. And as a bonus, you don’t need expensive or elaborate equipment to catch them—you can simply use your favourite walleye and bass rods and reels.

Scented soft-plastic minnows

Benson cleverly refines the drop-shot rig for big lakers by tying two #1/0 Gamakatsu Drop Shot hooks, spaced 2½ feet apart, onto his line. Then he dresses the hooks with a pair of white, three-inch-long, scented soft-plastic minnows (above) to resemble a small school of baitfish. For line, he spools on 20-pound-test braid with a 15-foot leader of 15-pound fluorocarbon.

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Although he will shake his soft-plastic minnows gently to attract the trout, Benson says most of the time he simply drops the rig to the bottom, tightens up on the line and ever so slowly back-trolls by putting his tiller motor into reverse and backing into the wind. “Drop-shotting is such a subtle technique that you don’t often feel a bone-jarring strike when a big trout takes your bait,” he observes. “Instead, you simply sense there’s more weight on the end of your line. After you set the hook, though, it’s a different story.”