Scofield

[Bluesteel]

My quest for the day was to find structure and fish at scofield, I keep hearing guys slaying fish up there and my frustration level grows higher, I have fish that lake for many years and have always had success, but for some reason this year it is kicking my butt!

I started out early today and hit the West Bank across From the cabins by the state park, I fish that bank in the summer and do well, my goal was to punch holes drop the camera and fish it no longer than 20 min. I punched the first holes at 7:20am. First drop of the camera was 17 ft deep sandy bottom, no fish for 20 min. Moved south in a zig zag pattern about every 100 yards and varing depth front 20 ft to 8'. Each stop I would drop the camera and flasher, And each stop was the same, usually a few chubs, maybe one or 2 trout, Same sandy bottom, no structure

By the time I got around the point I finally found some structure, but still no fish. From there I worked my way back to the dam arm through the main channel. Did not catch one trout, caught 24 chubs. Never did find many fish in a concentrated area.

I know the lake holds plenty of fish. But all my old spots are void. I am stumped. I may try one more trip over along the scout camp and north shore below those cabins.

Hope your luck is better than mine. Or maybe I just need to drill a hole and wait for them to find me!!!!
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[cdbrc]

three of us hit SF Tue. Had the snow much. Out and going, but it quit after two hundred yds. East side, 7ft. of water. Drilled 6holes and never left them. We got 98 cuts Ann bows but they were all over 17 inches. Not a chub, even tho I tried for the bait factor. Small white anything with meal worms. Minnow and worm did nothing for us. A lot the time when they cycled through both poles would have fish.
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[Bhans13]

That's crazy, I have never caught more than 1 chub per trip. I must not be fishing where the chubs are at. But I feel ya on the frustrations, I went up there between Christmas and New Years and fished for about six hours using 2 poles and I only iced 4 smaller cutts. I went yesterday and caught around 20. All cutts except one 6 inch bow and one fat little chub.

This fall right before it froze we had days where we caught anywhere from 30-60 fish and we caught a few bigger fish with one 23.5 inch cutt. Here is the cutt I caught about 2 weeks before it froze.
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[RyanCreek]

Sorry about your luck, it has happened to me too!

However, my dad and I also fished Scofield today 1/11/14 and we had great success with about 30 fish between the two of us - two planter tigers, two planter rainbows, three fat chubs (became ice offerings to the birds), and all the rest were cutts just under or in the slot. At times the fishing was very fast.

We fished one of our favorite spots in the dam arm. The fish were rather shallow. Most of our time was spent on about 10 feet of water close to shore. There were a lot of fish, and they were all hugging the bottom and required a good deal of active jigging and pause cycles to coax them to bite. The fishfinder was very helpful to figure them out. Used mainly pieces of chub minnow on our jigs, although some were also caught with worms. Strangely, the mealworms didn't do much for us.

After a bad season for me last year at Scofield, I am becoming personally convinced that the reservoir is indeed on the right trajectory and is improving. Never caught so many cutts there before.

A pair of wardens were out on their snow-machines checking licenses. One confirmed with us that others who were having success were also close to shore. Towards the end of the day, probably heeding his advice, many other groups around us started to do the same and began catching.

The warden and I discussed the extreme likelihood of the world record tiger trout being caught soon. We know the state record is a bit over 19 lbs, but the warden also said his friend caught one over 18 recently. Just a matter of time before someone breaks 20 and gets their minute of world record fame.

Saw two golden eagles and a bald eagle on our drive back scavenging separate road-killed deer. That was neat.
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