I mentioned this before and caught some flak for it being considered by some a non-sporting way to fish, but as far as I know it’s not illegal. I believe it’s illegal to leave the rod unattended say overnight, but

I don’t think you being a few feet away or sitting alongside would be considered “unattended”? So I’ll let you decide how ethical it is.

I've had success with fishing for LT mainly from shore in campsites with deep water access by the following method.

You need a weight heavy enough to cast out and hold the bottom. I like either the Pyramid or disk type, 1 oz. will do fine. You want to use a slip sinker type set-up so the fish can grab the bait and the line will run free. I never used clear line to the hook, but you could if you want.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

You want a variation of the Sliding sinker bottom rig
I use barb-less circle type hooks.  The smaller the better. You want the bait to float free of the bottom maybe 12-18”.
I use a Gulp minnow or leach.

After you cast out from shore and set the rod upright in your make-shift rod holder, you reel in all the slack and put the reel in free spool mode.
I often will do this first when setting camp especially if the wind is up and I know I won’t be going out in canoe.

Keep an eye on the rod tip as you do your camp chores. Same thing at night, you could put some sort of reflective material/yarn on rod tip to check its action. When rod tip starts bouncing and/or you see the spool free running. You take rod out of holder drop the tip, take reel out of free spool and reel in the slack and set the hook with an upward sweeping motion.

With braid you just flick your wrist and you’ll set the hook. Circle hooks will grab the fish in the corner of the mouth. Worst case scenario the line breaks off and the hook stays in the corner of the mouth where it will either work its way free or rust off.

Not for everyone but it works great as long as you pay attention.
Did that one year on Quetico Lake and instead of a LT, I caught numerous freshwater Ling Cod ,which I cut up an put in Cache Lake Fish Chowder.

PhantomJug wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2015 at 7:43pm:


Will not get into politics but that's pretty funny...

Will have a rod each ready to go for our paddle across Batch and will make sure we spend a few minutes fishing the outflow. Understand there are several opportunities in that area through the portage to Maria.

(red)where batch narrows down, theres the common camping spot on the point, we have had some really good luck between that point and where the beaver dam used to be.

(yellow) the outflow of batch to maria has yielded some pretty big fish for us also.

(green)the little point across from mosquito point has produced a few nice ones also. its shallow and snaggy so watch for that.

(blue)the grassy really narrow area from pickeral into the bay before maria is shallow, but has some lunkers.

(purple)right before you can see the maria portage, theres a big point. theres a huge cabbage weedbed that extends much farther than you would expect. we have hauled some monsters out of there.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Good stuff Jax, thank you. Looks like we will need to add a couple of hours to our first day's paddle. Typically don't fish until we get to where we are going to set up camp on day one but what better way to get into the flow of the trip than to slow down and get into a few fish from the getgo.

Will need to make sure I have my orange grippers and a couple of lures within easy reach. One week to go...

one of the fish from the area in the photo