11-26-2019, 08:22 PM
I have enjoyed the last few Saturdays and the beautiful 40-50 degree weather trolling deep for big rainbows. I also think I found a great location at EC to drill some holes when we get some safe ice. See pic of my fish finder and how many fish are clustered and how deep they were.
We fished one pole Kokanee style with dodger and squid at 60 ft and stacked that side with a wooly bugger on a dodger at 45 ft. Then fished the other side with a J7 Rapala at 55 and stacked it with a jakes at 40 ft. The deeper squid and rapala caught the most and biggest fish with the fly coming in a close 3rd.
The quality of of most bows have been larger than the usual with most of the fish coming in between 15-18 in. Can’t wait for next year when they are 18-20 in. Most fish caught on the fly were the smaller planters.
Many of the larger fish appeared to have some kind of parasite. See pic. I’ve caught fish with worms before and they are usually thin and not so healthy. These fish were very fat and looked healthy. I noticed something different with catching and releasing these deep rainbows. They seemed to be able to expel air and swim right back to the depths unharmed. We use the rubber net and we don’t handle them. But yeah they all made this burping noise.
Now for the best part of the day. One of the fish we returned was struggling to get back down and a couple of seagulls flew in for lunch but he was too big of a portion for their liking. The fish would swim down and then come back up splashing on the surface. Just as I was getting ready to swing back around to net the fish for dinner, a large shadow descended upon our boat. I looked up and saw the beauty and majesty of a large adult male baldy swooping toward its target. It made one real close dive in to investigate the meal and flew back up and made one more circle and dive. This time with the landing gear and talons it gracefully snatched up that rainbow and flew off with it. Wow!! That was one of those outdoor spiritual moments that overpowered the catching of fish.
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We fished one pole Kokanee style with dodger and squid at 60 ft and stacked that side with a wooly bugger on a dodger at 45 ft. Then fished the other side with a J7 Rapala at 55 and stacked it with a jakes at 40 ft. The deeper squid and rapala caught the most and biggest fish with the fly coming in a close 3rd.
The quality of of most bows have been larger than the usual with most of the fish coming in between 15-18 in. Can’t wait for next year when they are 18-20 in. Most fish caught on the fly were the smaller planters.
Many of the larger fish appeared to have some kind of parasite. See pic. I’ve caught fish with worms before and they are usually thin and not so healthy. These fish were very fat and looked healthy. I noticed something different with catching and releasing these deep rainbows. They seemed to be able to expel air and swim right back to the depths unharmed. We use the rubber net and we don’t handle them. But yeah they all made this burping noise.
Now for the best part of the day. One of the fish we returned was struggling to get back down and a couple of seagulls flew in for lunch but he was too big of a portion for their liking. The fish would swim down and then come back up splashing on the surface. Just as I was getting ready to swing back around to net the fish for dinner, a large shadow descended upon our boat. I looked up and saw the beauty and majesty of a large adult male baldy swooping toward its target. It made one real close dive in to investigate the meal and flew back up and made one more circle and dive. This time with the landing gear and talons it gracefully snatched up that rainbow and flew off with it. Wow!! That was one of those outdoor spiritual moments that overpowered the catching of fish.
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