Lake Trout

Lake trout are long, heavy-bodied char with a gray-green to dark olive body covered in pale cream spots, a deeply forked tail and a large head and mouth; spawning fish and some strains show orange fins with white edges. They are native to the glaciated lakes of Canada, Alaska and the northern US from New England through the Great Lakes to Montana, and have been stocked across the Rockies, where they grow enormous in reservoirs like Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa. Fish of 5–15 lb are standard and the all-tackle record is 72 lb.

Lakers are the slowest-growing, longest-lived freshwater game fish in North America, maturing in six to ten years and living past forty in the far north, which makes big fish easy to overharvest. They need water below about 55 °F (13 °C) and high oxygen, so they spend summer deep over humps and basins eating ciscoes, smelt, whitefish and sculpins, then move shallow in fall to spawn on rocky reefs and stay near the surface under the ice and at ice-out. Their size, stamina and the remote places they live give lake trout a mystique shared by few other fish.