The story behind my Lake George giant

There are absolute monster lake trout in Lake George. I’ve heard of mid to upper 20 lb fish coming out of Lake George. Most of the fish that we catch are probably somewhere between 25-30”. Overall, I would rate Lake George as a very healthy fishery. We purposely catch and release almost every fish we catch throughout the season. We do that because many of these lake trout are old fish. They grow slow and live a long time. The only way to see a lake produce trophy fish is through catch and release.

So here’s how the story goes…We were out last summer fishing in the middle of the two different hurricanes that came through the Lake George area. Both of them were relatively tame compared to what they were predicting. I share that detail because I do believe low pressure systems trigger big fish to bite. Talk to anyone who targets big predators and they will tell you weather changes are huge to turning fish on.

So we went out to a spot that has produced lots of quality fish. We started jigging. I think we both had tubes on. I like the tubes made by Venom lures - especially the 4” Salt Series Tube in the Salt and Pepper color and the Pearl Silver G color. We both had a tube on a jighead - I like 5/8oz, 3/4oz, and 1 oz. And it was crazy - in a timespan of about 15 minutes we caught a number of fish. They were good ones. And if you’ve read or watched what I put out, I like to fish them near the bottom, and then I like to rip them away from the fish. And we were just getting ready to reposition the boat and I was just reeling my bait up when this fish hit. And I knew it was a heavy fish. You could tell it had weight. And big head shakes. But it didn’t make a big run - probably because it had swam up to grab the bait and maybe was already up into warmer water which might have wiped it out a bit.

We finally saw the fish and I knew it was big. And before I knew it, I slipped the net under her and was trying to lift her into the boat. Truly a massive fish. Now here’s where I don’t mess around. Since I’m bent on popping the hook and getting fish back in the water, I didn’t mess with a ruler or a scale. I got a couple of pics and got her revived. So her size will be a bit of a mystery.

This year I will have a 48” rulers on the boat. I also could have measured the fish off of my rod or the net, but again for me, I’m way more interested in getting the fish revived.

So that's the story. Enjoy the video. Hope to capture a lot more high quality footage as we move forward.