Preferred Temperature Chart

For Freshwater Gamefish

However, here are the preferred temp favorites of a few top Captains at the Oak. We thank them for sharing very critical details that take years to learn. First, two variants...around staging periods in late August, many times some darker kings wander up higher than their usual preferred temp zones (btw, the real high fish are sheepies). Second, 10% of the time, bows and steelies could be anywhere, including below the kings.

Here are the preferrences of some of the very successful Charters you read about all season long in our reports.

Species	Degrees Fahrenheit
Kings	47-52
Lake Trout	46-52
Steelies, Bows	55-60
Brown Trout *	54-55

* On Browns...54°-55° on bottom, but 56°-58° 5' to 10' up. First half of July, find clouds of bait near bottom west and east of river mouth near bottom... dynamite!

We had our best luck with the Fishhawk. Of course there are other capable units out there. Handle with care...we blew three of them, then went to feeling the balls to make sure the deep one was cold and relying on our Raytheon color video to bracket those kings, bows or browns. Several top Captains are currently doing that (bracketing with the video). But every Charter Captain and successful recreational angler out there agree on one thing...speed at the ball. There's not always a wet-netted boat next to you to match speeds with. Our lake has wicked currents much of the time and currents speed changes in each different direction you troll. IOHO, success could be doubled with a good ball speed indicator. Once again, there are Captains and recreational anglers out there with years of experience who rely on rigger cable angle, the bend in the dipsey rods, etc. that do just fine! Without your own probe, probably the two surest ways to determine the current speed down below is the bend on the dipsey rods and VHF radio contact with others who have units. The dipsey rod bend is a good indicator because 95% of the water pressure is on the dipsey diver itself, not on the thin wire or superline pulling it. However, on the rigger cable sometimes it's misleading because drag on the much thicker rigger cable can cause excessive cable slant-back close to the boat. Remember, the most critically important speed down below is when using dodgers and flashers. We suggest going with a reliable deep temp/speed unit, especially for the speed info.