Disappointment today at last Thurs. "Hot Spot"..at the South campground side entry point..Way more tracks all around this area, so maybe it was hit too hard over the weekend..one other guy came out after me, and he moved around also before setting up his tent..he was a bit further North, and had caught a carp when he came back to chat awhile..hope he found 'em..I moved around a few different spots also, just catching dinks...but even they were tight lipped today..I started at 1000, and finally back in tent at noon, a nice school of 9 to 10"ers came thru, and I iced 4 of those pretty fast..then slow, slow, slow again, and I scared up only 4 more quality perch before I pulled stakes at 2 PM.. 1 at 8.5", 7 at 9 to 10". I hope the lack of fish today was the result of higher activity over the weekend, and maybe they will be back in a few days..Guluk..

Hi all, I haven't been to Deep Creek for several years, just wondering if the trout there still have the mites or whatever they were under their skin. I would like some fillets for the smoker with skin on but prefer some without the mites. Used to eat many of them before but not skin on, mites would come off with the skin. There were some really nice trout on there then. TIA

Check out this link! It's a homemade "snowdog" but I think it would be challenging for the state to license this.  
Link:   Facebook
Might be worth trying in the future instead of an actual "snowdog".

I accidently deleted the entire thread when I was trying to edit and clean clean up my response to the initial post. To the initial poster and the couple people that replied please repost on this string, again I am really sorry.

My response to the post of lack of post on Matua was:

My guess is Mantua is really tough this year after the big fish kill last year, unless you want to catch 12" slimer trout that where planted after the kill. Hopefully the few surviving Bass, Bluegill and Perch will benefit from fewer mouths to feed and get large and replenish the lake for better fishing in the coming years.

Anyone seeing any white bass in any of the harbors yet?

On January 15 there was a post saying that Deer Creek was still open water. We've had nearly two weeks of cold weather since then. Has anyone seen ice forming on Deer Creek yet?

Here is my starter to get me on the board. Now that I have something to show, I'll get a spreadsheet posted soon. 

Starvation Reservoir
January 25, 2025

Rainbow trout - 17" 


Verified good at 17 later Jeff

Was hoping for some posts re: wkend fishing, but looks as tho most stayed home to watch football. Just got back from Rockport.  Hadn't been there in a week, fishing Echo instead.  Fished 20-45' over the southern flats and off the dam from 10:30-1:30.  Fewer fish, fewer bites, smaller size --- all of the above.  Kept only four 9s & 10s out of the dozens caught.  Eyeballs & perch belly.  7" of ice down south; 10" at the dam.  Bluebird day with all sun and no wind.  Looks like Echo for me next outing.

Had a couple of PMs asking me for my perch chowder recipe.  Can't post PDF files in the BFT messages function so thought I would just put it up on the main board again.  Might be some newer members who have come aboard since I last supplied it.

With all the perch jerkin' goin' on now, shouldn't be too hard to get enough perch fillets to make a big batch.
  PIG OUT CHOWDER.pdf (Size: 1.79 MB / Downloads: 25)

After several trips of perch chasing on the ice and having read a few posts about how long it takes to clean them. I thought I would chime in. We are not having a problem culling 9-10 inches perch with a few 11 and very occasional perch of 12”, no problem keeping as many as wanted in just a few hours. We are finding them shallow enough to release easily without air-bladder trauma. I have found the area of the lake does make a difference in size, overall they do seem a bit smaller in average than last year but still easy to keep a nice batch. This last trip we had to move several times to find the fish, a move as little as 20 yards made all the difference. At the first place we tried which was very close to previous trip Nada, moved a bit still nada moved again, nada moved 3rd time nothing moved again and then Bang first drop and every drop right away. We all relocated and it was pretty fast for 2 hours till we decided to quit we had what we culled to fillet and wanted to get home to watch football ?. The spot we settled on was only 50 yards from original spot no difference in depth, but first spot 0, final
Spot near non stop! As far as filleting the perch. We kept about 70 good ones for the three of us. I kept 23 and filleted them with Mr. Twister electric fillet knife and timed it. It was 15 minutes to fillet 23 perch, it just doesn’t take that long to clean them if you practice. Last year a buddy and I cleaned a bucket of 50 perch in 23 minutes, I slabbed with electric and he deboned with standard sharp fillet. We were rolling!  I will post video in a bit. Here’s a pic from earlier trip of some perch and trout and a batch of air fried coconut perch yumm. Got the link to video video added below .
This video is from earlier trip and smaller perch, 9-10 plus are even easier faster to fillet.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/08f1nOTP...qLG731C_YQ