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Hi all,
I'm taking a scout group up to Mustang Ridge next week. We'll be hitting a mix of fish and I think I have down the SMB, Rainbow, and Kokanee.
I'd like to stack my downriggers with a deep lure for Macs and the shallow ones for Kokes or Bows.
Any advice on what to troll deep for the Macs? I'd assume a large crank in Rainbow or silver/blue colors to match prey in the lake.
We'll be C&R on everything except enough Kokes for a Friday night Fish BBQ.
Edit: Are Burbot "catchable" this time of year? I'd love to kill a few of those to teach them about health of the fishery and invasive species.
TIA
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I just got back from taking a youth group up. All the kids had a blast and caught some pretty nice fish.
I use flat fish and trolled them just off the bottom at around 1.5 MPH. We caught a pretty good mixed bag. I basically did what your talking about stacked my down-riggers deep and put two lead core rods at anywhere between 40-60 ft. We got into a ton of Macks, and Koks and even a few rainbows.
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Awesome. I'm so excited to go!
What size flatfish and did colors matter?
Thanks!
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U 20's and T 50's . Colors were Frog, Perch Scale, Metallic Silver Flame and Luminescent Chartreuse. I had them hitting all of them but the hottest color by far was Metallic Silver Flame.
I headed back up again on Friday. Cant ever get enough of the Gorge!!! Excitement understood.
Good luck
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I'm going up with are scouts the 26th of july
we went up two years ago and the kids still talk about it
sounds like this year we will have a lot of parents go but I can only put 6 in my boat
what I would do was take 5 out in the AM (it was hard to get the kids up when I wanted to go. like it was still dark.) and 5 in the PM. (we have a lot of kids)
on the big flat fish they dive about 20' when you let out 100' of line.
also spoons and needle fish work.
The best way for me to troll for kokes and lakers at the same time is stack with
a Shasta Tackle Shuttle Hawk. take the release off that come with it and use a
Off Shore Tackle (White) Release and a line counter real on your koke rods
watch how for down the Shuttle Hawk goes down on your fish finder also watch the line counter. If you get a koke you don't need to bring up the down rigger.
which has a lure on for a lake trout
fishing for the big lakers can be slow
if I was you I would fish more for the pups, spoons works good for catching pups.
the more fish you catch the more fun the kids have, if you go over 15 min without
catching a fish they get board
but if you hook in to a big one that is once in a life time for them.
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Good call on the Pup fishing. I think we will be targeting them more than the big ones. I'm taking 14-18 year olds and a few of them are serious fishermen so they won't need to be catching littler trout quickly to stay happy.
That group will want to hit Kokes and a chance at a big one...
But you are right, for the majority of the group, numbers will be more important than size. I think that group will really enjoy Bass fishing too.
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