I did a charter this morning and had great catching. We boated 3 fish over the slot. The biggest fish was 38″ 18lbs. We also boated 4 fish at 28/29 inches. The weather was perfect fishing weather. No wind, light rain, and the fish were biting, we fished the bottom at 160′ to 180′. Fishing south of the delta on the east side. I marked many fish, it was a great day for one of veterans on memorial day.
See Ya on the water
It is definitely spring weather. The fishing has been very difficult. We have been catching 5 to 6 fish a charter. I am mostly fishing the bottom with flatfish from Yakima Bait the M2SP Flatfish in red/white, silver / blue, Mother of Pearl all are working well.
The run off is in full swing. Fish the edges of the mud line and in the mud line. You will start to see many suspended fish now that the water temperature is starting to suspend. Find the depths of the fish on your finder and try some spoons, dodger/houchies.
SEE YA ON THE LAKE
John Yourk is a guide for me from Libby. John will have his jet boat here in Kalispell for the summer. We are doing some great pike fishing in the sloughs off the FLathead River. Lots of action and some very nice size pike.
We are offering kokanee fishing on Middle Thompson Lake. We fished it last weekend and caught several 20″ kokanee. Also we caught our limit of smaller fish. Give us a call we can fish it on the weekends.
I did a charter taday on Flathead Lake, it was a very nice day. We put 6 fish in the boat, one slot fish at 35″. I trolled the bottom at 160ft. with flatfish. It was a very calm and warm day. I think the next few days will be very good fishing. Try deeper water out to 200ft. Try red/white flatfish, blue silver, and all white glow flatfish.
See ya on the lake
Well the fishing has been kinda tough this past week. I was out this morning, we put 5 nice fish in the boat. I was trolling 8″ flashers with white houchie squids. I trolled in 160 to 200 ft. of water. South of the delta on the east side is where I found lots of fish. The run off has slowed down due to this cold weather. I again saw fish on the finder, they are not biting very aggresive. I did see some fishermen that were jigging, they too were catching fish.
Tight lines
This is a copy of the response I wrote to members of the Flathead Lake co-op management plan. Please read and if you have any comment about the future of Flathead Lake and the co-managment plan, please email your comment to rosel@cskt.org Remember to stay involved and let your voice be heard.
Barry;
Let me start by saying, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be involved in the process.
I agree with the plan to reduce the number of lake trout to bring back the native bull trout and west slope cutthroat trout. The question remains how do we do that?
I think there are more questions than answers. Many excellent questions have been asked.
1. How do we measure success?
2. What is the number of redds, to agree that the bull trout are on the increase, stable, or secure? We have a basic problem if the agencies cannot agree on the definition of stable, or secure levels. The agencies cannot agree on the creel data. How do we move forward without coming to some agreement on the data and how the data is defined? The redd count is the only measurable way to evaluate the population of the bull trout, so we need to look closer at the entire system in the life of the bull trout. The fact that the bull trout (redds) have not decreased measures some degree of success. It has been stated that what has been done in the past nine years has had no effect. Quoting Tom McDonald in the Daily Inter Lake Sunday, April 4, 2010 he states “However, we believe it is possible and imperative to stop the downward spiral of the bull trout population. Tom goes on to say, frankly, bull trout are just hanging on by their caudal fins. Tom states,
that the exploding lake trout population, the native bull trout are in serious danger of vanishing from the lake. But you say the lake trout have reached capacity. How does a population keep exploding if the lake cannot hold any more? The redd counts suggest that the bull trout are not declining, in fact they seem to be holding their own.
3. Is success attainable?
4. How do we measure success? I feel that the fact that the bull trout have NOT crashed proves that they are not going extinct.
5. Maybe a better course of action might be how do we stop the spread of lake trout out of the Flathead Lake system.
6. Maybe containment is a better approach than reduction. Can we contain the lake trout to Flathead Lake? Can we keep the lake trout out of the upper lakes?
7. Can we have a viable fishery and low numbers of lake trout at the same time. The user days are going up dramatically with the Mack Days value. This is a true success story. The public wants to catch fish!
8. I propose a year round bounty to promote more fishermen involvement for the next 5 years. Re-evaluate the redds, the increase in participation and the catch rates for the next 5 years after that. Now that the value of the lake trout has gone up, the public is expecting it to continue and this has put a commercial value on the lake trout.
9. If the number of bull trout in the system goes up, wouldn’t the predation on the cutthroat also goes up, especially in the upper river system?
10. I would also suggest a do-nothing approach for the next five years. If the lake is at carrying capacity for lake trout, then we agree that the population of lake trout is not going to increase, then the lake trout would not have a effect on the decrease of the bull trout.
Sincerely;
Bob Orsua
Flathead Lake Outfitters and Guides
The fishing has been very spotty. The runoff has started, then stopped. The wind has blown hard, then stopped. The bite has been on, then stopped. The storms has come and gone. I guess you get the picture. Most of the fishing has been jigging deep on the east side of the mid-lake bar. We did some jigging and caught some smaller fish. I trolled in the same area and caught about the same size 2-5 lbs. The fish seem to have moved into deeper water. I have been fishing in 160′ to 230′. We went down and tried some perch fishing in the east bay and basically got blown off. When the weather settles down I am sure the bite will pick up. Today we caught 5 fish in just two hours. I know some guys that stay out all day can pick up 10 to 30 fish, most under 5 lbs.
See ya in the fish lane
4/26/2010
Fishermen:
Opportunities for lake trout and perch are optimal at this time. Because of improved techniques and awareness of fish concentration areas, catch numbers are very high for lake trout. The fish are either very deep (pivot depth at 250 feet) the deep fish are primarily feeding on shrimp or feeding on the fish that are feeding on the shrimp. The shallow water group is feeding almost exclusively on small fish so as a result they run bigger on average than the deep runners but aren’t normally as good eating. A ¾ oz of 2 oz Glo Grub in either green chartreuse glow or white glow color below a glow fly have been the best producers. Our green scented cut bait with an additional scent of WD-40, shrimp oil or even anise are all ways of enhancing your bait in the dark reaches of the lake where these fish hunt primarily by scent and sound.
My partner and I boated 54 fish yesterday which is no more than an average day when you take into account the number of fisherman who are harvesting the 50 fish a day limit. The one event that made our day unusual was landing a 28 lb behemoth (picture included). This fish was released so it still lurks the depth of Flathead Lake. I told my partner I’d keep the location a secret for one week, but because this fishing hole is more a line that runs for a bout 20 miles rather than a specific spot you don’t need a GPS reading to have great fishing. The 28 pounder was caught about 3 miles North on the same 250 foot depth line as the 30 pounder that is leading the Mack Days contest.
The largest numbers of lake trout are being taken on the mud line near the river delta at the North end of Flathead Lake. Here you can add Lead-a-Gators and Rattle –D Zastors to your arsenal of gear.
If you want to target large fish in either the delta area or the 250 foot line at mid-lake try fishing a whole fish. Bait fish up to two pounds are used if our interested in catching a real flathead lake monster.
Long lining in the shallows will get you more fish than using a down rigger. A countdown perch or firetiger Rapala or a hammered brass spoon is good bets for lures. If you use floating Rapalas and you stop for any reason you might find yourself fighting an osprey (fish hawk).
The perch in East Bay are back in fairly heavy weed cover. On days when the water is murky a flame red 1/16 oz or 1/32 oz lead head below a bobber baited with night crawler has been working well.
Nice messes of 10-12 inchers are being taken. Because cooler water comes into the bay as the lake rises the window to catch perch in any quantity is fairly short. Four weeks is about the length of the bite. You probably have about three weeks remaining. For up to the minute information call us at 406-675-0068 email us at: macman@ronan.net to see our tackle line and new reports check out our website at www.zimmertackle.com Good fishing.
The Macman
The runoff has started. We have been fishing on the east side of the delta. The fish are there, just try different spoons and flasher combinations. We had mixed results last sunday with spoons, and dodger squid combinations. Also jigging in the 160′ of water was producing good numbers of small fish. I troll the edges of the mud line as well as in the muddy water. The wind will push the mud line around the lake. Watch your fish finder and you will see the schools of fish. Troll your spoons just over the top of the schools. If you find large schools of fish, stop and jig for them. Be flexible and you will catch fish.
See ya in the fish lane “Ben”
Powered by WordPress