Fishing Forum

[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]I fished Henry’s Lake for about 12 hours on Saturday. IMO Henry’s Lake is in better shape than it has been in 5+ years. Most (about 75%) of the fish that we caught were 12”-15”. We caught a few 10” & 11” fish and several larger fish. The 16”- 21” fish didn’t seem to be as well represented as they should be but all of the other sizes of fish seemed to be well represented. We didn’t catch any Brook Trout but that isn't uncommon for us at Henry’s. Most of the fish that we caught were in less than 15’ of water but we did catch fish in deep as 18’ of water. We did some bait fishing and fly fishing but trolling was the most productive for us. These trout were also more aggressive than I expected them to be and readily took lures at what I would consider fast trolling speeds for trout (2 mph). I believe their aggressiveness was related to the water temperature. Throughout the day I checked the water temp in several different parts of the lake and every time the surface was close to 56 degrees. Most anglers didn’t seem to have too much trouble catching at least a few fish. Most stringers that I saw had mostly 15” fish but many stringers had one or two larger fish on them. I heard rumors of several large fish being caught but the largest that I heard of anyone else catching was 11lbs. With the exception of the deeper water most of the water had a green tint to it and a yellow tint to it. Visibility in these places seemed to be limited to 2-5 feet. I finished off two roles of film and will post pictures as soon as I get around to developing film.[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]The lake was much more crowded than it was last year. Here’s a couple questions for those of you that were at Henry’s on Saturday.[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]How many boats do you think were on Henry’s around 10am (not including float tubes)?[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]How many fishermen do you think fished Henry’s on Saturday?[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]Do you think the fishing will be better at Henry’s this year when compared to years past considering both quantity and quality of fish?[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]Did you catch, see any big fish or hear any rumors of big fish?[/font][/size]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]I’ll answer these questions later as long as someone else answers at least one of them. [/font][/size]
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I fished the Hatchery from 5:00A.M. until 9:30A.M. I only had two hits both of which I missed. I only saw two fish caught in the Hatchery Hole but that does not mean that there were not others that I did not see. At 8:00 I counted 22 bank fisherman, 19 boats and around 20 float tubes in the Hatchery Hole. I had a good time despite my lack of success. There were many boats packed in closer then 100 yards.

Sunday we had a family memorial for Kenny Kiesling who drowned last year near Massacre Rocks. (Below American Falls) We placed a sign that reminded people of the dangers of the area and also remembered a dear friend and relative who was always ready for another fishing trip. Please be careful out there this year. i.e. wear a wading belt etc...

Monday we fished Roberts Gravel Pond with no success. I do not think that the Fish and Game stocked it. I watched many, many families drive away without success. (Is this a family fishery?) We also fished the Rexburg Nature Pond which I know was not stocked. We ended up catching several small perch and chub minnows. The Nature Pond was hit hard by many people and I just wonder why it was not stocked so that the kids in the community could have some success and want to fish in the future. It was kind of to hear small children screaming with the excitement of a 3" minnow.[crazy]

Overall, good weekend poor fishing success. What will this weekend bring? Any information on the recent activities of Condie or Twin Lakes would be greatly appreciated. I am really hoping to have a good weekend for bluegill just so that kids can stay interested. Looking forward to hearing your posts throughout the summer. All of you who are hiding in the background, come out and talk so that this community can grow and we can all learn from each other.

Windriver
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This is a picture of my biggest fish of the day. It was 24 1/2" long and had a 16" girth. My scale said it weighed 7 1/2 lbs.


This is a picture of me with one of the larger fish that I caught that day.


This is a picture of my brother with an extremely fat hybrid. The shape of this guy reminds my of a kokanee that is spawning.


This is a picture of my brothers with the two biggest fish of the day. The one on the left was 29 1/2" long and had an 18 1/2" girth. The one of the right was 28" long and had a 19 1/2" girth. Both Weighed exactly the same on our scale. If anyone has any guess on the weight of these fish feel free to post it.


Here's a picture to give a size comparison of the largest fish of the day. The smaller fish in the picture is 18" long and 3lbs.
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I too fished Henry's Saturday. I got there about 8:00 and went to the hatchery, I took a look at the hole and there were way too many people fishing there for me to get out there. I saw windriver's truck out there so I knew he was out there somewhere in that mess. I decided to go fish staley's. I fished from 9:00 to 12:00. I got two hits. One I missed and the other was a nice fat 16 inch hybrid that I landed. I was using a fly from the float tube. The only time I got the hits was when i was trolling it. Nothing else produced anything. From there I fished a few streams and there too it was slow. Caught a few but not a lot and nothing to brag about. It was a pretty slow day for fishing. Monday I took my wife and we went to look at Roberts ponds. Saw a few people fishing but no one catching anything. We threw out some bait a couple times but there was just so much moss we decided to leave. Any one else have good success over the weekend?
Fight4not
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Brian,

There were officially 250 boats on the lake at 10 a.m. which means there were about 1000 anglers.

Hopefully those hybrids were released - they will be 3 to 5 pounds heavier by fall. This is why in the fall we sometime (last year) got three over 20 pounds. One was released this weekend that was 28 inches, 20 inch girth.

We had a slow day fly fishing on Saturday - our fault - we got there too late. Monday we fought the wind but got 16 fish in two hours. On flies we did not get any under 15 inches.

Fly fishing will start producing big time in about two weeks.

Fish and Game report that about 1 out of every 18 fish were brook trout. They are also reporting that this was the best opener for large fish that they have heard about. I believe that the numbers are still down, but increasing. Five years ago, my son-in-law and I landed 299 fish in two days of fishing. We were trolling flies. In six hours this year we had 31 hookups. We hooked some very large fish but most of them escaped the boat by making long runs and active jumps. Looking forward to this weekend when I will fish Thursday evening and Friday morning with my 7 year old grandson. I will seatbelt him into the seat while we troll flies.
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Thanks for the info Bill. Is there only enough parking spaces for about 250 vehicles/trailers at Henry's? I was guessing that throughout the day that there was around 300-400 different boats on Henry's and there were 1500+ fishermen but that is only my best guess.
I let go my five or six largest fish of the day but ended up keeping the smaller fish in the bottom picture because it was fowl hooked in the gills. My brothers decided to keep their big fish.
It is good to here that anglers are catching that many brook trout. In the past it seems like only 1 out of 100 fish that we catch out of Henry's is a brook trout. The one thing that I'm sure about is that the fishing at Henry's is going to be better this year than it was 2 or 3 years ago.
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Bill and Brian,
Sound like you guys did pretty good over the weekend. I wish i could say the same. We were one of the first boats at the hatchery at 5:30 sat morning. My bro and I tubed trying every fly in the box while dad bait fished in the boat. We then moved over to pintail point where my brother caught one 2-3 pound cutt. A couple of my friends landed 3 or 4 fish around pintail point while we were at the hatchery. One of them was a big one guessed to be around 8-10 pounds. I'll get the pic and post it the next few days. We then fished the cliffs and then into the outlet bay and nothing there. So three of us fishing for 6 hours and 1 fish total. We fished again on monday in the wind and decided to drift flys from the boat around pintail point (waves too big for my tube!). Once again my bro caught 1 small one. We tried the outlet again to get out of the wind a little and nothing happening again. So again 5+ hours fished by 3 people and 1 fish! So it was a dissapointing weekend for us as far as catching goes. We always love getting up to the cabin and relaxing and just getting out on the water is great. But the catching was terrible. So once again Henry's lake kicks my butt. I can't remember the last fish I caught there. It had to be in the mid 1980's! But I am glad that someone got into some fish! We wanted to try trolling but we were in a brand new boat and trying to break in the new motor and the manual said to not be at idle speed for too long so that wasn't an option.

Bill, just curious, how did you fish in that heavy wind on monday. Did you drift fish? We tried everything in the fly box including black leaches, black buggers, electric blacks, canadian browns, canadian reds, purple showgirls, green sages, and about everything else I could tie on. Did you find anything that the fish seemed to be more interested in and what area of the lake did you catch most of your fish?

Any reports from IP res? Does the water need to drop down for the fishing to get good there?

Thanks for the reports!
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With the water as murky as it was due to wind, etc; we drifted and trolled #4 Purple Showgirls and #6 Black Rug Yarn flies. On Monday we fished the area from the county Boat Dock to straight off Duck Creek. With the wind the way it was, we would start in 13 feet of water and stop at 17 feet. Then we would motor back up wind and do it again. The fish would slam those large flies with many of them throwing the fly on the third or fourth jump. Drifting and casting into the wind can be tiring, but rewarding. I drag two anchors on the bottom of the lake to slow us down a bit when drifting in those heavy waves.

Hope this helps.
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Our best flies were the #4 Purple Showgirl or a #6 Black Rug Yarn. We drift dragging two anchors on the side of the boat - both are positioned on the same side so the boat will drift sideways. On Monday we trolled and drifted from off the County Boat Dock in 13 feet of water to off Duck Creek in 17 feet of water. Many of the big fish would jump three or four times and throw the fly - too much pressure on the fly to keep it in. As dirty as the water was on Monday, we used flies with a lot of flash in them to increase the visability.

I always try to stay away from concentrations of boats as I believe many fish are spooked by them. I think that float tubing and pontooning spooks most fish also. Think about it - most people move a lot in these floating devises and fish the area that they have just passed over. In Henrys, I have found in recent years, fishing from a tube is mostly unsuccessful in water shallower than 12 feet.

Hope this helps. Fly fishing in about two weeks should be outstanding on most days. The snowflies will be gone and the damsels will be crawling on the bottom.

Good Luck.

Bill
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Bill,
I swallowed more than one snow fly on Saturday. The breeze that picked up latter in the afternoon did a good job of thinning out the snow flies.
I have also found that fishing is much slower were there have been a lot of boats. For that reason we try to avoid the crowds but for some reason some boats like to fish next to other fisherman and will troll right by us when were anchored. Do you think that fish at Henry's are moved out of the area by boat traffic or do you think they stop feeding? I think it is a combination of both but would like to here your more experienced opinion.
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Nice fish Brian

I haven't been able to get on Henry's yet this year. I have been on Sheridan about 6 times. It's fishing awesome. I hope to hit Henry's this weekend but we will see.
Again super fish.

Lynn
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