Bear Lake ... 10-14-05

[Old_Coot]

[size 2][font "Comic Sans MS"] Hooked up with BLM and AFDan52 today for some fun in the sun on Bear Lake today. Arrived at the State marina about 6:30 AM. Shortly after arriving, the Wiper team arrived with their boat and Bait_Caster and his neighbor arrived in their boat.

We launched in BLM's boat and went straight to the rock pile. After seeing a lot of marks we drifted while jigging there. The marks were generally in 70 feet of water or less. We jigged there for several hours with no luck (unless Dan's snagged sucker is lucky). We didn't see anyone boat any thing either. We did see quite a bit of pre-spawn staging surface activity though. Since it was so slow, we headed for the east side near Second Point where BLM seen some marks on his sonar. There we anchored up and finally got into a little more action ... mostly cutthroats. I think we only boated one mac and it was small 2-3 lbs. All the cuts were only about 2-3 lbs with the exception of one nice one that BLM caught. It was about 4-5 lbs. All total, we boated about 9 fish. One cut that Dan caught was belly snagged and bleeding pretty bad and is probably in his fry pan by now. And the sucker he snagged ... it is probably in cut bait strips by now too.


The weather was fantastic ... a bit nippy for the morning ride out but by the end of the day we were all in our T-shirts it was so hot.
There seemed to be lots of what I call spider webs (or what ever they are) in the air. Just as we were leaving, I looked up and seen about 30 of them clinging onto one of BLM's nets. That's what one of the pictures is.

As always, I learn a bunch from other fishermen when I go with them. Today was no exception. The water and weather was fantastic as my sunburn can attest. It was great to get out with AF Dan and BLM today ... enough hookups with plenty of misses all topped off with a bunch of laughs.[/font][/size]


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[wiperhunter2]

Nice report Ralph, I'm glad to read that you guys got into some fish. We talked about going over to the East side but that was as close as we got. We also noticed all those spider webs and have seen days just like today when fishing Willard. Sure was a nice day.
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[Theekillerbee]

Nice report Ralph. That cutt Rich has sure is a beaut though. Too bad the Macks didn't want to play.
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[BearLakeMack]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]Ya, Brandon, that cutt had a lot of color for a BL fish. The cutts were definately on the bite on the east side. We caught nine fish but had many more hits and a few also came unbuttoned on the way up. We were only on the east side for about 3 hours so it was a fairly regular bite. We were in 75 ft of water straight off 2nd Point.[/size][/black][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]We also talked to BLFG when we came in. You should see the barge they are using to get the rocks out to the new piles the DWR is creating. The thing takes up half the ramp! He told us about all the little trials and tribulations of how the project came about, all the logic that went into the selection for the location of the mounds, and the logistics of how they figured out how to get the rocks out there. They plan on dumping 800 yards of rock out there![/size][/black][/font]
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[wiperhunter2]

He told us the same story and about how the fish are already all over the rocks that have been dropped already. It will be interesting to see if the lake trout use it this year but I'm betting the cisco will be all over it. Looks like we have a closer Rock Pile in the making. As Scott was talking about how the project came to be I couldn't help thinking that this could be one of the best ideas I've heard of that involves the big blue lake that I can remember.
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[RipNLips]

Well at least you guys caught a few and had a good day on the pond.

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[size 2][font "Comic Sans MS"]There seemed to be lots of what I call spider webs (or what ever they are) in the air. Just as we were leaving, I looked up and seen about 30 of them clinging onto one of BLM's nets. That's what one of the pictures is.
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Spiders hatch in the spring and fall. The young of many species of spider leave the nest and climb to the highest spot they can find, extend a long strand of silk thread in the breeze like a parachute, and get carried away to places unknown. I'm sure they'd prefer to land someplace with lots of food and cover rather then BLM's net.
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