Adirondack Trout Fishing

We travelled north to the Adirondack Mountains for our summer vacation this year and spent  the trip in both Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. I had the opportunity to wake up early and fish some mountain ponds for char. The Adirondacks have three species of char - brook trout, lake trout (makinaw), and splake. The splake is a cross between a brook trout and a lake trout and displays attributes of both parents. Some of the ponds in this area have wild splake supplemented by stocking, so the fishing can be excellent. Splake are one of the rare hybrids that aren't sterile.

I have been traveling up to the Adirondacks for most of my life, and especially over the last 15 years.  Each trip, I experiment with at least one new pond. It helps to broaden my horizons and really gain knowledge about the best fishing in the area.

I primarily targeted splake and lake trout and the fishing was excellent in spite of the hot weather. I looked to fish lakes that were accessible by kayak or canoe only, so almost every pond I fished could only be accessed by trail. My kayak cart was essential to fishing these ponds. Most of these ponds are only opened from April to October, so the limited access and short season leads to extremely good fish populations.

Initially, I was looking to jig for splake. My strategy was to search for pods of alewives or smelt and begin jigging. I found the pods of baitfish, usually on the bottom for smelt, or along the bottom third of the water column for alewives. I only caught one fish on the jig the entire trip - a nice 24" splake, but I snagged more baitfish (smelt and alewife) than splake.

The first time I snagged an alewife, I began trolling with it and caught a 22" splake immediately.

On another trip, I snagged a large smelt, but it keeled over and floated to the surface. While I was re-rigging in 70', a 21" splake came up and took it off the surface and started to run with it. I hooked it, and a crazy surface battle ensued, where the splake took off towards the bottom and I disengaged my reel to let it run. It dragged me around the pond for a couple of minutes but I landed it.

Despite some success with the livies, my best fishing was the result of trolling Suttons. Although the surface temps in these ponds was around 72 degrees, they are all fed by cold springs and the water gets cool quickly only a few feet under the surface. I found that  the zone to look for splake was in 20' to 25', which normally coincided to the location of alewife or smelt schools. Trolling speed was often critical, and 2.0 mph worked best, sometimes I would need to speed up and slow down to trigger a hit. A zig-zag trail would also often induce a hit.

I learned much about lead core fishing this trip. Importantly, I don't view my reel as a conventional anymore, but look at it more like a fly reel, and I disengage the reel as I troll and control the drag with my thumb. This allows me to absorb some shock when I get a hard hit at the beginning of the strike. I learned this lesson the hard way. One morning, I hooked into a fish while trolling. The fish gave the typical head shake when hooked, but when the hook couldn't be shaked, the fish panicked and bolted for the surface. It leaped out of the water and I saw it was a nice landlocked Atlantic salmon, most likely over 22" - the momentum of the leap away from the boat coupled with the lack of drag on my lead core led the salmon to break my 6 lb fluorocarbon line. So, it was an important learning experience.

This was helpful, as I caught many splake in the 25" class and even a 33" lake trout. The lake trout was released and qualifies for a NYS Catch & Release Angler Achievement Award. My largest splake was over 31". I erroneously released the large splake believing that it was a lake trout only to learn from the regional biologist that it was likely a splake. It really hurt when I got home and saw that the NYS record for splake was 31" long. Although it was a disappointment, I now know that these ponds can produce splake in that size class. The knowledge I obtained from learning the fishery the last two years will assist me greatly to catching an even bigger splake in the future.

The battles with the large laker and my biggest splake were very memorable. They both fought similarly hard. After getting hooked, they both bolted to deep water. I disengaged my reel, as I was towed away from the edge of the shallows to the deeper portions of the lake. They both took me down from 3 colors of core to 7 colors of core and went on several runs. Each time that the fish would become winded after a long run, I would nudge her towards the surface. These were both fast and powerful fish. It was almost like hooking a motor boat. I was almost taken to my backing!

The splake moved with the alewives from day to day, but stayed consistently along the edges of steep drop-offs adjacent to medium-depth flats (20'-25'). The sharp drops to up to 35' were the best producers, but the splake were holding shallow. Splake could often be seen pushing the alewives to the surface. The splake were always near the alewives.

All and all, a great trip. I'd like to get up there again next month and hopefully for Columbus Day as well. Next trip, I intend on targeting brookies more, and the final trip will be prospecting more for big rainbows. There are so many ponds and lakes in the area, and the number of cold water species is so diverse, an angler could travel to this area for decades and not cover every good water. The Adirondacks are definitely a paradise for the kayak fisherman.

Special thanks goes to Tim MacNamara, who hooked me up with one of his Paddle Cams for trip. This allowed me to take some solo pics and may have been the MVP of the trip, because now I have some pics that will last a lifetime to memorialize the great fishing. It took really good pics and is now a must have gadget for me on my fishing trips!