12-01-2013, 12:55 PM
[#0000FF]I gladly accepted an offer to ride up with OldCoot and join BearLakeFishGuy in his boat...for some whitefish action. Me...in a boat with two other guys...on a Saturday. And the world did not end. In fact, it turned out to be one of those rare calm days on Bear Lake that make a special place even more beautiful.
Launched on the east side of the lake, in Scott's boat. Hit the ramp sometime after 8 am. Light ripple on the lake...which died down to flat calm a bit later. Air temp 18 degrees and water temp 43. Surprising number of other boats hitting the east shoreline. Some trolling out further. Most working on the whitefish.
Thanksgiving came a week later this year but the whitefish action seems to have started a bit earlier than "normal". Good catches have been made in several areas around the lake during the past week. Most years don't see them coming in numbers until about the first week of December.
The first spot we wanted to hit was already occupied by another boat, so we moved a bit further north and found fish along another stretch of shoreline. Slow at first but then a few moved in and we all caught fish. Scott scored first on whitefish. Then I got into a couple. Coot must have thought he was back on Strawberry. His first two fish were cutts...on a small tube jig. Then he switched to the gold and orange pattern pony head jigs that Scott and I were using and we all caught whitefish.
Action died down at our first stop so we made the run up to Cisco Beach. Several other boats working the area but we found one of Scott's spots and dropped the anchor in about 10 feet of water off the rocks. Didn't take long to get into some active fish. Oh, we all missed a lot more than we caught, but we did bring in enough to keep the net busy. Most were good healthy fish from 16 to 20 inches. A couple bigger and a few smaller. Scott also brought in a nice rainbow and an unnice carp to add to our species count for the day.
Since Coot's main objective for the day was to just get enough fish for some video footage of the filleting process...and because we had the long drive back to "civilization"...we opted to make a short day of it. We quit on still biting fish around noon and stopped briefly at our first area before hitting the ramp. There had been several boats working that area but they were mostly gone when we pulled in for a final fling.
There were plenty of whitefish still hanging around that area but a high percentage of the ones we managed to hook were smaller than the larger ones we had been hooking earlier. And those white-dinks were experts at bait thievery. We kept "whiffing" the hooksets and bringing in bait-free jigs. But we added a couple of keepers to the "death well" and then finished our run to the ramp.
To recap: We found fish almost anywhere there were rocks in water from 6' to 15' deep. Best action for us was about right in the middle of that. And while we sometimes got fish at the end of a long cast we probably got more my teasing them into following the jigs back to the boat and then doing the wiggle jiggle vertical thing right under the boat at the end of the retrieve.
I took a whole big box of different colored "roadrunner" jigs...with the little spinner blades. I tried most of them and caught fish on almost every color I tried. Scott and Coot also used them a lot, but they also fished both small tubes and small black twisters with good results. For a long time during mid morning the "hot" ticket was the gold with orange spots patterned pony jigs. But as light levels changed with passing clouds or rippled water lures in black tones seemed to produce better. I personally believe that finding the fish, making a good presentation and being able to detect the often light bites was more important than color.
We headed back to Scott's home to set up the fillet boards and allow Coot to shoot some footage. Only took a few minutes for Scott and I to slab off the fillets from the whitefish...and the lone cutt we had kept. Then Coot and I were off down the road...with some lovely chocolate candies made by Scott's family for Christmas every year. Didn't take us long to destroy the evidence.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Launched on the east side of the lake, in Scott's boat. Hit the ramp sometime after 8 am. Light ripple on the lake...which died down to flat calm a bit later. Air temp 18 degrees and water temp 43. Surprising number of other boats hitting the east shoreline. Some trolling out further. Most working on the whitefish.
Thanksgiving came a week later this year but the whitefish action seems to have started a bit earlier than "normal". Good catches have been made in several areas around the lake during the past week. Most years don't see them coming in numbers until about the first week of December.
The first spot we wanted to hit was already occupied by another boat, so we moved a bit further north and found fish along another stretch of shoreline. Slow at first but then a few moved in and we all caught fish. Scott scored first on whitefish. Then I got into a couple. Coot must have thought he was back on Strawberry. His first two fish were cutts...on a small tube jig. Then he switched to the gold and orange pattern pony head jigs that Scott and I were using and we all caught whitefish.
Action died down at our first stop so we made the run up to Cisco Beach. Several other boats working the area but we found one of Scott's spots and dropped the anchor in about 10 feet of water off the rocks. Didn't take long to get into some active fish. Oh, we all missed a lot more than we caught, but we did bring in enough to keep the net busy. Most were good healthy fish from 16 to 20 inches. A couple bigger and a few smaller. Scott also brought in a nice rainbow and an unnice carp to add to our species count for the day.
Since Coot's main objective for the day was to just get enough fish for some video footage of the filleting process...and because we had the long drive back to "civilization"...we opted to make a short day of it. We quit on still biting fish around noon and stopped briefly at our first area before hitting the ramp. There had been several boats working that area but they were mostly gone when we pulled in for a final fling.
There were plenty of whitefish still hanging around that area but a high percentage of the ones we managed to hook were smaller than the larger ones we had been hooking earlier. And those white-dinks were experts at bait thievery. We kept "whiffing" the hooksets and bringing in bait-free jigs. But we added a couple of keepers to the "death well" and then finished our run to the ramp.
To recap: We found fish almost anywhere there were rocks in water from 6' to 15' deep. Best action for us was about right in the middle of that. And while we sometimes got fish at the end of a long cast we probably got more my teasing them into following the jigs back to the boat and then doing the wiggle jiggle vertical thing right under the boat at the end of the retrieve.
I took a whole big box of different colored "roadrunner" jigs...with the little spinner blades. I tried most of them and caught fish on almost every color I tried. Scott and Coot also used them a lot, but they also fished both small tubes and small black twisters with good results. For a long time during mid morning the "hot" ticket was the gold with orange spots patterned pony jigs. But as light levels changed with passing clouds or rippled water lures in black tones seemed to produce better. I personally believe that finding the fish, making a good presentation and being able to detect the often light bites was more important than color.
We headed back to Scott's home to set up the fillet boards and allow Coot to shoot some footage. Only took a few minutes for Scott and I to slab off the fillets from the whitefish...and the lone cutt we had kept. Then Coot and I were off down the road...with some lovely chocolate candies made by Scott's family for Christmas every year. Didn't take us long to destroy the evidence.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
