Hyrum 1-16-03 Thanks for your help

[plecopterahopper]

Had a great day at Hyrum thanks to all who posted help.

I pulled some driftwood down to get across the soft edge like Jacobl did, the ice was 5-6 inches thick about 15 ' from shore, but I drilled a lot of holes as I moved around to make sure. I fished on the south west end of the lake in the mouth of that bay (is that what you call hell's half acre?) in about 20-30 ft of water. Caught a perch right off and then put an eye on a rat finkie with a cast master inline about a foot above the finkie. I lost count of the Rainbows I caught, many right off the bottom, but everytime I saw one come through higher on the fishfinder, I could reel up and catch one almost every time. I caught about 12 perch and one 2" LMbass. I switched back and forth from eyes to mealworms and it didn't seem to make a difference to the trout, but the perch definitely liked the eye best. The biggest trout was 17", and most were between 10" and 14".

Thanks for all of your help I had a great time today!
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[jacobl]

Glad to hear you had some good success, hopefully I will be able to make it up there this Saturday and try my luck out again.

Jacob
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[fishnate]

good to hear that you caught some perch! DWR keeps sayin that the perch catch is nonexistant. Is anyone else out there catching perch at Hyrum? I'm looking forward to Predators Hyrum report on saturday. Has anyone heard why the perch population has been hard to find over the last year?
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[neveronsunday]

[size 2][#ff0000]Glad you had a good day. That area up and around that little bay is called Devils-Half-Acre. Some other places to try are the post about the car bodies on the north shore, or what is called rocky point which is a little pile of old cement and rocks and such on the southeast corner by the inlet. Sometimes around rocky point a “reef” of water plants grow almost to the surface about twenty feet out, about ten feet thick. Make sure and drill your hole out past this “reef.” I’m not sure if it’s safe in this marginal ice year so far. There is also the submerged standing tree but I would make great cover right next to it in a pair of cement boots if I disclosed its location on-line. That’s one we would have to do together. Any one else fished it? [/#ff0000][/size]
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[IceFishingGod]

Me and the boys will be there Saturday AM. We'll be directly across the lake from the boat launch about 150' from the opposit shore. We'll have the finders and underwater camera with us. If the Perch aren't there we'll be at the mouth of Hell's half acre in 18' of water.

IFG

[RipNLips]

Glad to hear you did well P Hopper. Also glad to hear you got some Perch. I believe these low water years we've been having are a major contributor to the drop in the Perch population. Almost all of the vegetation and debri exists around the edge of the reservoir and it hasn't been flooded for much of the year the last couple of years. The eggs and fry need that stuff for cover. Without it, they're an easy meal for larger fish. If you were a big fish and were given a choice between eating bugs and plankton or caviar and fish, what would you eat?
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