WHERE;

Fishing on Flathead Lake continues to be steady. Fishing the eastside of the center bar over 200’ of water is the area to fish during the runoff. Staying south far enough to stay out of the mud line and keeping your lures tight to the bottom. These fish are feeding on the mysis shrimp that spend the day light hours on the bottom of the lake far away from the sunlight.

What they are biting on;

Troll deep with the usual dodger and houchies combinations. Silver and green for the dodgers and pearl white for the houchies/white fly.  Also try tipping the front hook with a piece of cut bait. Also try Brad’s Super bait with some cut bait or your favorite scent in the body of this lure. I like the green/chrome color, also try the red/white.

Lake Koocanusa

Lake Koocanusa is still kicking out some Kamloop rainbows, smaller in the 5-8lb. range. Also the Kokanee fishing is very good right now, seems like everyone is limiting out on these great tasting fish.

Tight Lines

Be safe

Flathead Lake:

The weather has settled down and the fishing has picked up. Catching fare numbers of good eating size lake trout on the big lake is the place to be.

Try trolling the north end of the center bar between the delta and the center bar. Troll the 180 to 200’ drop off the east side of the center bar.

Troll flashers from Pro-Troll in the 8 series. #106 Glow Chartreuse or # 725 double glow. Tie on a #35 Octopus/Squid (41/4”) #8955 double glow from Silver Horde, or a Brad’s Super Bait filled with your favorite scent or cut bait and you will catch these Lakers.

Remember to keep these baits within 10’ of the bottom.

Try jigging in 180-230’ of water with the standard jig setup from Zimmer tackle.

Lake Koocanusa:

The rainbow fishing onLakeKoocanusais starting to turn on. 10-15 fish days are common. The surface water temperature is getting up to48 degrees and the fish are starting to get active.

Trolling Kokanee colored Rapalas is the lure of choice. Also Lyman lures and some flies all in spring colors. Try keeping your speed in the 2.5 to 2.8 range. The rainbows are averaging 3-5 lbs. with an occasional 8 lb. fish. Expect to catch 3 to 4 bull trout on an average day. Remember catch and release on all bull trout.

The rainbow fishing will only get better as the water continues to warm.

Tight lines

Capt.

Bob Orsua

Mo Fisch Charters

Flathead Lake:

Lake trout fishing has been a little slow. The weather has been different every day. The dropping barometer hasn’t helped, the wind has been unpredictable and the temperature has been up and down.

As soon as the weather stabilizes the fishing will get better.

The runoff is putting the muddy water and high oxygen levels, and minnows in the lake. Try fishing the delta at the north end. Start along the mud line and watch your fish finder for suspended fish. Trolling with the typical flasher/dodger combinations with houchies or ace hi fly.

Also try some spoons. Brass spoons with the red stripe are always a good starting point. Stacking your downriggers with the bottom rig close to the bottom and a spoon for the suspended fish.

Lake Koocanusa:

We fished LakeKoocanusa last Sunday and only boated one small rainbow and two small bull trout. Again, the weather was a problem. Saturday night the barometer dropped like a rock, the temperature fell to the low 30’s and it dropped an inch of slushy snow. The lake is down 70’ the boat ramps are fine. The lake is starting to get muddy from the runoff, but the middle of the lake is still clear. The surface water temperature is 41.9 and rising. The fishing will get better as the surface temperature gets up near the 50 degree range.

The Kokanee fishing is very good right now. All the guys I talked to were limiting out. The fish are in the 8-12 in. range.

See ya on the water

Capt. Bob

Mo Fisch Charters

Hey everybody, here’s  the latest report.  Pass it on………

Reel Adventures  Fishing Report

Kootenay  Lake

April 10,  2012

The fish are harder to find right now.  So, you need  to mix it up. We are fishing both on the surface and  down deeper.   Bucktail flies on the surface in the usual colors are working.    Blk/wht, Grey/wht, Purple/wht are working.  My favorites have been: #  228, 215,  and lately the 210.  Some common names are:  grey  ghost and  bleeding gill.

Also catching  fish on Bill Norman lures and Lyman plugs on the surface.  Favorite colors  have been:  Rainbow, purple/silver, blue/silver, green/silver Billies.   And an assortment of Lymans: purple/wht, green/orange,  black/silver.

Also we’ve  been using the downriggers for both Rainbows and Dolly Varden (Bull Trout).   Some of our best depths have been  80′, 120′ and even below 150′  lately.  We’ve been using our favorite flasher & hoochie combo, or  my favorite Lyman plugs are working well.  Plug #’s  16, 32,  55 ,  and 160 have producing some good fish for me as  well.

The water  temperature is still hanging around 40 degrees, but I did notice slight  increases on some days.  So,  fishing should get better and better as  we approach Spring.

Let’s Go Fishing  !!!!!

Tight  lines………………. 

Your  Guide,

Kerry  Reed

Reel  Adventures Fishing Charters

Nelson  B.C

250-505-4963

www.reeladventuresfishing.com

Threat to a Sport Fishery

You’ve been reading about the Confederated Salish and
Kootenai Tribe saying that lake trout are exploding and bull trout are almost
extinct and therefore they need to net lake trout. I think just the opposite is
true.

Redd counts are the number of spawning beds made by the adult
bull trout in the tributaries in the Flathead River
drainage. These counts are done by the FWP fish biologists, which began in
1979. Current counts state that the bull trout population is stable. Stable
means that the bull trout are not on the brink of extinction. You hear
there are only 3000 adult bull trout in
Flathead Lake. If you count all age classes
of bull trout there are between 50,000 to 130,000 bull trout in the system. A
mid-term review of the Flathead Co management Plan said lake trout and bull
trout populations are stable/stable. Those aren’t the facts you’ve been reading
about, are they?

If you have 1000
anglers participating in Mack Days and the entries keep growing it just proves
that there is a large demand and interest in fishing and the extra dollar value
put on the lake trout only drives up the popularity. Mack Days is targeting the prime seasons to catch these fish in spring, post spawn, and
the fall, pre spawn. At this time of the year the fish are congregated in
smaller areas and allowing for a higher success rate. You hear about big catches but the average fishermen are catching 5 to 10 fish per day or less. There are a
select few dedicated fishermen that spend 14 hours a day on the water, more
time spent equals, hopefully, more fish in the boat. Besides the dollar value
there is some bragging rights that drive some folks, and fishing is fun. Just
the chance to catch a $100 fish is reason enough for some. The tribe does a
great job in rewarding these fishermen and the award ceremony is a fun time for all. However, the successful fishermen now have to
fish 250’deep or deeper to catch little lake trout. Average fishermen are
having a hard time catching lake trout in shallower water like usual. Charter
captains like me fish for a living. I fish more than 200 days a year on Flathead Lake. Our catches have dropped from 15
fish per day to 3 ½ fish per day over the last 15 years, an 80% drop.

There is no evidence that taking out 150,000 lake trout a
year as they propose will help the native species. The biologists have also
said that the 200 year models might show some increase in native fish!
In fact, they have also said that there might be less native fish after
removing that many lake trout. There is no example to show that this effort has
been successful in any other body of water, nowhere! The biologists cannot
answer the question, what is enough, or, what is too much? I think Mack days
have reduced lake trout numbers. The lake trout and the native fish have
co-existed in the Flathead
Lake drainage for over
100 years and the fish are stable/stable. Is the risk of possibly crashing a
sport fishery worth the unknown gain? I say no! We all acknowledge that the
mysis shrimp have changed everything in the lake. The introduction of the mysis
was supposed to be a good thing for the non-native Kokanee salmon but it
crashed them. The lack of knowledge of reducing the lake trout might have the same
results. This decision must be decided by good science, not wishful thinking.

Tom McDonald from the tribe is quoted saying “the lake
trout population is leveled out, but we are not seeing any response in the bull
trout”. I disagree; we are not seeing a decline in the bull trout population, they
are stable. The biologists do not know if there will ever be a positive
response in the bull trout even if they were able to remove all the lake trout.
In fact they have been quoted to say there might be fewer native species.

Many questions are unanswered; the lake trout are keeping
the shrimp population in check, what will happen to the water quality if we
create such an imbalance of the fish populations that the shrimp numbers increase?
If they gill net the lake, how many Lake superior whitefish will also be
killed, how many bull trout will be taken in the gill nets, how many other
species of fish will be affected by the shifting of balance? So far, Mother
Nature has kept the population of all the fish species in check, but netting
could upset that. I like bull trout and want to see them around. But, at best
this plan might only grow a few more bull trout and we still won’t be able to
fish for them. If the lake trout are gone from Flathead Lake
there will be no sport fishery left in our jewel of a lake that we present to
the millions of visitors that come here annually, not to mention the enjoyment
of us that live here. And every business around Flathead Lake
will suffer.

FWP withdrew its
support of the environmental review process because they see the need to do a
complete EIS, better science, complete
transparency, and public scoping. The tribe wants to just go ahead and kill
150,000 lake trout a year for the next 5 years and then study the results. The
tribe has applied for 3.5 million dollars from BPA for the next 3 years to
continue this experiment on the taxpayer’s dollar, from our power bills.

Is this the bridge to nowhere?

Bob Orsua

Mo Fisch Charters