Wednesday was a cold, cloudy, and slightly windy morning on Lake Superior. But charter captain Ethan Waytashek left the Twin Points public boat ramp confident he and his client Isaiah Bartlett were going to do well catching lake trout.
“The water temperature was 32.6 degrees — just above freezing, but Superior stays open from ice most years,” Waytashek, 26, tells Outdoor Life.
Waytashek guided his 18.5-foot aluminum Warrior boat a mile or so offshore, and the anglers started deep jigging with white two-ounce tube jigs.
“All I do is fish jigs for lakers,” says 26-year-old Waytashek, a full-time guide from Two Harbors, Minnesota. In fact, his guide service is called Lake Superior Jigging. “No trolling, just jigging, and only for lake trout.”
Waytashek says the fishing action was unusually slow that day. Bartlett, who lives in Duluth, had never caught a lake trout before. But he landed several smaller fish that morning.
“Then that afternoon, while jigging a slight drop off in 165-feet of water about 1.5 miles from shore, he hooked a bigger fish,” says Waytashek, “I saw the fish on my depth sounder and after Isaiah cast, I saw it hit his jig on my sonar screen.”
It took Bartlett about 10 minutes to fight the laker, using an 8-foot-long rod with 20-pound test braided line and a 15-pound test fluorocarbon leader. Bartlett maneuvered the trout close to their boat so Waytashek could net the fish and haul it aboard.
“I laid Isaiah’s fish on my boat measuring fish board and it was 43.25-inches long. I knew it topped the current catch-and-release laker record, because the woman who caught it fished with me last year on Superior. Kelsey Vanderheyden’s record fish measured 42.50 inches and is the current record for Minnesota.”
Bartlett’s fish is longer than Vanderheyden’s, and by following the Minnesota procedures for catch-and-release fish, Waytashek is certain Bartlett’s will be the top catch for lake trout.
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After measuring Bartlett’s trout and taking a few photographs, Waytashek released the trout alive back into Lake Superior. He estimates it weighed between 25 and 30 pounds. Bartlett plans to get a replica made.
“Isaiah is planning to come back and go laker fishing again,” says Waytashek, who fishes Lake Superior waters for lakers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. “But it’s gonna be tough for him to beat his [own] … record.”
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