Electronics play a big part in Lake Trout Ice Fishing.. This includes a portable flasher depth-finder and a global positioning system (GPS) unit. Lake trout often relate to main-lake points, drop-offs, sunken islands, other humps, feeding shelves, and flats. To find such spots, scout a lake in summer or fall by boat, marking potential hard-water fishing areas as waypoints in a portable GPS unit.

In winter, our fishing group drills a grid pattern of holes over a chosen location, covering both the structure and a variety of depths in the area. Use a flasher to check depths, and mark in the snow beside each hole. When jigging, the flasher allows you to observe the lure right down to the bottom and to watch for fish. The unit also marks suspended fish entering the area, which is common with lake trout.

If you haven't had a strike within about five minutes, move to another hole. When of you starts catching fish at a certain depth, drill several more holes in the area. If you haven't had a hit for a half-hour at one location, move. This is made easier by the use of snow machines and a power auger. Too many ice anglers sit fishless all day at one location. Mobility and finding active fish are the keys to catching them.

We suggest jigging for lake trout using using ball-head and banana-shaped jigs in 1/2- to 1-ounce sizes. Combined with soft tube or twister-tail bodies and tipped with minnows, they will work well.

Keep your drag set tighter while jigging, to facilitate hook-sets, then ease off once a fish is on. In deep water, low-stretch superlines instantly telegraph a trout hit and offer better hook-sets than monofilament, but they can work against you in shallow water where a bit of stretch in a line prevents ripping hooks out of a fish.

The second part of the strategy combines swimming jigs with more aggressive jigging with spoons. If several anglers in a group jig spoons, they'll help to attract lake trout. They might not hit the spoons, but they are likely to strike a nearby baited swimming jig or a set-line. Hammered stainless Hopkins Shorty and Smoothie spoons, Swedish Pimples, Kastmasters, Crippled Herrings, Snakies, Stingsildas, and Gibbs Minnows in 2 1/2-inch 1/3- to 3/4-ounce sizes are my favourites. Effective colours include green, blue, red, and silver in one- or two-tone finishes. Attach spoons to the line by using a quality snap. Don't tip spoons with bait, because their action is better without it. To fish, snap the spoon several times three to four feet off bottom, let it drop, then jiggle or quiver it. After a short pause, repeat the sequence. Many trout strike on the spoon's drop. You won't feel a hard hit, so watch for the line to twitch or stop, then set the hook.

Use stiff 36- to 42-inch graphite jigging rods and spinning reels that have instant anti-reverses to prevent play in the handles. For most jigging I spool-up with 8-pound-test line, but bump up to 12-pound-test for big lakers.