06-18-2007, 05:07 PM
[#000000]Saturday afternoon I took the boat and the family up to Scofield for some evening fishing. Debated back and forth with the wind blowing whether or not to go but finally made the decision to go as the kids were excited and I didn't want to disappoint them.
We arrived at the lake at around 5 and launched at the State Park over by the dam. The parking lot was full. The narrow arm by the first State park was fairly calm and smooth but the main body was choppy. Not too many white caps but some good swells. The air temp was a good 40 degees cooler than the valley up there. It was 50 degrees when we got off the lake.
We talked to a guy coming off the lake as we were launching and he said it had been great fishing in the morning but once the wind came up the fishing stopped. We decided to head to the island and anchor. We got out to the island and found probably 15 boats already anchored along the East side and the North East corner. I saw a spot on the North side that I like to fish and headed for it. However another boat had the same idea and saw I was headed there so they gunned it and roared in just ahead of me giving me a dirty look as he dropped anchor.
We found another spot and dropped the anchors and started to fish. We picked up 2 12” fish almost immediately before we could get all of the poles in the water. I was thinking this is going to be great. We didn’t pick up our next fish for maybe ½ hour. The wind would come and go. Some of the time it was a little choppy and then it would die right down. When the wind did die down the fishing would pick up. By 8:30 the wind had almost stopped and fishing was hot. At one point we had 5 fish on at once – we only had 1 net – nice problem to have. We landed 17 fish in about 3 ½ hours of fishing. 4 of the fish went 3 lbs – very nice fat rainbows. No cutts or tigers this trip. The fish were either in the 11” – 13” or the 19” – 21” range. There were not any in between. It was a great night to spend with the kids. The kids are already bugging me to go back and catch more of those “big fish”. We went to the cleaning station and there 4 other anglers that had been fishing from the bank that had fish of equal size. We were using orange sparkle and green sparkle power bait. We did catch 1 fish on a night crawler. Speaking with the guys at the cleaning station they said they were fishing night crawlers on the bottom.
I will add this, and I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I have never seen such rude boaters as I did Saturday night. There were a lot of boats anchored off the island. You were lucky if there was 20 – 30 yards between you and the next boat. Why we were all so close we could have had a pot luck for dinner. However, there were 4 boats that felt it was necessary to troll through all of us. They would come within 10 – 15 yards of the boat. Twice they snagged our lines. Once I had a fish nibbling and playing with my line and just when it was getting serious some idiot came and trolled right over the top and the fish was gone. If I had had a water cannon I would have blasted the rude people. These people felt they had to weave in and out of the boats and troll around the island. I couldn’t believe it. Good thing the kids were there as I was mad enough to use some of that fish language out loud on the guys that trolled in so close.
Would add some pictures but forgot the camera this trip. [/#000000]
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We arrived at the lake at around 5 and launched at the State Park over by the dam. The parking lot was full. The narrow arm by the first State park was fairly calm and smooth but the main body was choppy. Not too many white caps but some good swells. The air temp was a good 40 degees cooler than the valley up there. It was 50 degrees when we got off the lake.
We talked to a guy coming off the lake as we were launching and he said it had been great fishing in the morning but once the wind came up the fishing stopped. We decided to head to the island and anchor. We got out to the island and found probably 15 boats already anchored along the East side and the North East corner. I saw a spot on the North side that I like to fish and headed for it. However another boat had the same idea and saw I was headed there so they gunned it and roared in just ahead of me giving me a dirty look as he dropped anchor.
We found another spot and dropped the anchors and started to fish. We picked up 2 12” fish almost immediately before we could get all of the poles in the water. I was thinking this is going to be great. We didn’t pick up our next fish for maybe ½ hour. The wind would come and go. Some of the time it was a little choppy and then it would die right down. When the wind did die down the fishing would pick up. By 8:30 the wind had almost stopped and fishing was hot. At one point we had 5 fish on at once – we only had 1 net – nice problem to have. We landed 17 fish in about 3 ½ hours of fishing. 4 of the fish went 3 lbs – very nice fat rainbows. No cutts or tigers this trip. The fish were either in the 11” – 13” or the 19” – 21” range. There were not any in between. It was a great night to spend with the kids. The kids are already bugging me to go back and catch more of those “big fish”. We went to the cleaning station and there 4 other anglers that had been fishing from the bank that had fish of equal size. We were using orange sparkle and green sparkle power bait. We did catch 1 fish on a night crawler. Speaking with the guys at the cleaning station they said they were fishing night crawlers on the bottom.
I will add this, and I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I have never seen such rude boaters as I did Saturday night. There were a lot of boats anchored off the island. You were lucky if there was 20 – 30 yards between you and the next boat. Why we were all so close we could have had a pot luck for dinner. However, there were 4 boats that felt it was necessary to troll through all of us. They would come within 10 – 15 yards of the boat. Twice they snagged our lines. Once I had a fish nibbling and playing with my line and just when it was getting serious some idiot came and trolled right over the top and the fish was gone. If I had had a water cannon I would have blasted the rude people. These people felt they had to weave in and out of the boats and troll around the island. I couldn’t believe it. Good thing the kids were there as I was mad enough to use some of that fish language out loud on the guys that trolled in so close.
Would add some pictures but forgot the camera this trip. [/#000000]
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