Capable of reaching over 100 pounds it is one of the largest freshwater fish in Canada… Truth!
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Delicious and readily available, it’s a food source for many anglers and fish harvesters.
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A powerful, sporting quarry which requires many different and refined angling tactics to catch.
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The most widely distributed fish found in all Provinces & Territories except P.E.I. But why does that one even exist anyways?
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Year round angling opportunities, wild or stocked fish provide endless days for fishing.
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There is no other than the lake trout to lay claim for all these amazing attributes. “Lakers” are by far the greatest prize to fishing this country has to offer, and so YEP, they are the “ultimate!”
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I love fishing, all of it, and multispecies fishing for me is where it’s at. Chase everything but mostly big or tasty stuff. To be highly proficient at catching anything and everything, that’s kinda the goal, the head space best lived in. So when someone curiously asks me to choose just one fish above all, and I’m faced with the question of hypothetically picking a favorite like I’m only allowed to fish just one fish ever again, once a storm of thoughts clear my default always settles back on lake trout. And I suppose this is why?
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Consider some of Canada’s other main sport and game fish and I’ll compare them to lake trout if you will…
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Walleye! Some years ago in an online poll through Outdoor Canada magazine readers were asked what the favorite fish for anglers is in our country. Walleye won at about 40% with bass following around 20%, and so on down a list. Walleye may just be one of the tastiest fish in freshwater. Prolific and found over a wide range within many of Canada’s more populated regions and beyond, they are easy enough to catch and available all seasons. Walleye score plenty points and are hard to compete with but come end of the day as a sport fish, albeit awesome, walleye are just not as much so as lakers. First off they are not nearly as big, definitely not even close to as strong, nor quite as widely distributed and available for all Canadians. Walleye are certainly fun just not as sporting. I’m looking for the “ultimate” angler’s fish here and this one just doesn’t quite make top grade.
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So what about bass then, number two on that list? For the hardcore’s there seems to a billion finesse techniques to catch bass and their popularity in both sport and leisure is second to none. This is understandable being how they are the most abundant fish swimming across our cottage country border towns and throughout the United States as well. Bass are tough and sporty, pound-for-pound worth the chase and that smile on your face, and yet they are truly just a small, easy to catch fish. Most of the populations are found in Ontario and Quebec with some spatterings into ranges east and west of there. So I feel they are not really “Canadas” fish, their distribution is just too limiting and even their seasons too short. A fish of average table fare, any toddler with a bobber and worm can happily catch bass off the dock.
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Could go through the list of different trout species but why bother? Wild lake trout are found in far greater numbers over a much broader range across the country and, they can grow to at least double the size of the biggest anything else. Lakers if they choose might eat most of those other trout. And yet they are all equally sporting sure, but again lake trout allow for full year opportunities and are just far more accessible to more anglers everywhere north, south, east to west.
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How about our great muskie? Or what about any salmon? Well, for the same reasons as other trout and even bass, these are honestly more of a niche fish not nearly as available to the masses as the lake trout. Most Canadian’s will likely never ever have any opportunity to fish for either of these species. Granted they are big and powerful and oftentimes employ some of the best angling skill and experience to catch, neither can truly hold up as being the “ultimate” Canadian fish. Muskies and salmon only appease to smaller percentages of this country’s anglers…
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Maybe even more so than the walleye, another specie that came to mind as being a real top contender is actually the northern pike. Yeah, it’s true, think about it! This is a fish that checks a lot of boxes. Its range across Canada is second only to lake trout. Pike can grow to better than half the size of the country’s record book lakers, so that’s pretty damn big. They are prolific, aggressive, sporting and can be caught many ways, with open seasons to angling year round and, if done right can be exceptional eating. Pike are a fish available to many anglers and yet alas, almost everything I have listed here falls second place to lake trout…
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Don’t get me wrong, I said from the start I love chasing so many different fish including all of those already listed, and more. This is all hypothetical, and being so, in taking reasons a little further still, I think the icing on the cake for me with lakers is that they really do have that everything factor. There is not a month in a year I haven’t caught one at some point in my life. Rare do I chase them in fall but there are many places one could, although it’s good enough having them available winter through summer. Nothing beats lakers for ice fishing, they’re just so energetic in their cold water element and the sonar game unbeatable. Come spring they can be caught casting jigs and spoons over shallows or flat-line trolling through feeding areas and along contour breaks. As the water warms, a plethora of different deeper trolling summer techniques and jigging take over, both of those styles of fishing equally fun and rewarding. In fall where available, casting cranks and swimbaits or slow drifting weighted three-way rigs can produce huge! All of these seasonal approaches and techniques which are common-place to most anglers from their home areas of Canada, can be traveled with and reapplied anywhere else! During July or August in the high arctic, ancient old tundra lake trout of possibly giant proportions can be hooked at your feet in the icy waters where you stand shore casting. In late December from a boat, while a three-way rig drags bottom over the currents at the Niagara bar on Lake Ontario, your rod could literally buckle over-and-over again with feisty fish. Boundless are the days, possibilities and places for fishing lakers all across this country and that is why they take that hypothetical top honor of being Canada’s “ultimate” sport and game fish.
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And really, lake trout are quite good eating up north too.
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Thanks for reading…
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Bunk.
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CANADA’S “ULTIMATE” SPORT FISH..?
Great write up! I love lakers. This is all spot on with my experiences and I’m glad to see someone other than me likes them. I fish the bar in the winter (for the lakers and browns, instead of the river for the bows. The river is just crowded and the bar is much better imo) and have had many double headers and double digit days catching double digit sized fish. I really hate how some of the fishing forums I go onto ppl hate the lakers, but in the summer and spring when trolling for salmon, if the kings aren’t around Laker’s are always nearby in St Kitts to the Niagara, and in the last few yrs I have learned around Port Weller to Kingston seems to have good numbers that ppl troll for very early season. I have had some break me off that were easily over 25 lbs. Few times I had battles last over 20 min and they start dogging it to bottom then my knot broke, and one time was even a spin dr. flasher and a fly. This species deserves more respect. I was lucky enough yrs ago to go to Great Slave lake and fish out of Frontier Fishing lodge, and I lost one there that was massive too, it too dogged it to bottom and eventually broke off. Another thing I like is how they will at times not even be shy of the boat. I had a friend battling one at the Bar and then I reeled up to get the net and a laker followed my bait right back to the boat. And on the Great Slave trip we had numerous lakers, easily 7-10 fish at times follow spoons all the way back to the boat.
Has always seemed that a huge majority of Great Lakes guys despise the lakers. I kinda get it, salmon, bows and browns are either powerful, more cool to catch or better eating than “the greasers.” However, I’d guess plenty of those types haven’t experienced somewhere like Frontier? Where lakers are in their prime habitat and they let you know it with their power. Or maybe the salmon guys are not interested in ice fishing? Which I think is probably the most rewarding way to catch them… To each their own though, and if all those guys want to leave lakers be then that’s perfect for the few who enjoy them. Those Lake Ontario are getting bigger and bigger each year too, the top end growing since the revival restocking days…. Up on Great Bear Bren and I were trolling this shoreline one day. It was 88 laker day with five fish about 18-20 pounds, nothing huge. But the action was so good, I caught a couple lakers playing in the propwash eating the bubbles while we slow trolled along.
They are also good eating down here! But you might have to smoke them first…..
Hard to argue with your logic although I am guessing that somebody will….
Thanks again for writing.
Some lakes Doug agreed, the fish are fine tasting! Your favorite lake, not too bad actually. Some others, disgusting. Up in the Madawaska hills, not bad I find however, don’t keep any from around home because it’s hard to know for sure. We enjoy the odd one from Nipigon although we all “want” and prefer a speck or two for a treat once a year. Arctic fish kept are excellent but oddly, where the Inuit can get both lake trout and char (pretty much everywhere) they far prefer the char to eat. I like it better too. Inuit hardly fish the abundant lakers other than late ice season for fun, derbies and I guess to eat.
Anyhow, anyone looking to disagree with this opinion post is welcome too. Would think they’d argue out of either inexperience or some personal sentiment. I would choose lakers if I only had a one fish option but overall arctic char and muskies tend to get me more excited when given the chance or a fish finally hits the line.
Glad you wrote this article, as lakers, are also known as “greasers” by those who prefer to eat salmon and other types of trout. The best tasting lakers I have eaten were taken in Lac des trentes un mille (31 mile lake). Nothing like a laker that wants to hold the bottow or return to the bottom. Thanks for writing this article.
They honestly get tastier and tastier the further north you go. Ate them almost every day for four weeks guiding Slave and there a number of the other guides could cook them a 100 different ways too. Every bite delicious! 31 Mile fish I’d think would be pretty great! Beautiful, big, clear lake. Always had to put our incidentals back while ice fishing whitefish there. A shame they shut that place down to even doing that, the cottagers there have a real stronghold on the goings-on at that lake.
LAKERS DEFFINATELY PUT A GREAT FIGHT.
FUN TO FISH, BUT MUST Have PATIENCE.
I loved those feisty beautiful Cold Lake Lakers back in the day with the most beautiful dark pink meat and tasted just fantastatic. Plus you could troll them, jig em and catch them nearly year round. I think they are definitely worthy of being called Canada’s fish!
We have some surprisingly good Laker fishing in NYS’s finger lakes. Not so big as there Nipigon cousins but every year 20 pounders are caught. There are similar to the deep shield lakes in Canda.But being as we are much further south the shallow water bite is a very narrow window. Most are taken w downriggers or jigging.
You also have Champlain which as I understand it quite a trout fishery in and of itself. Twenty pounders down south here, even in Lake Ontario aren’t always frequent. That’s some quality fishing you’ve got for sure.