Went camping at Bear Lake at the beginning of the week. Only had one morning to fish but this beauty came out of 80' of water. If you look close you will see that it's tail is pretty ragged. Looks like it finished the spawing business and was back in the lake. It went 26" but could have been 27 if it's tail was completely in tact. The head and mouth were huge. It sure had some shoulders to it. I made the mistake of putting fingers in that mouth and paid the price. At least my fingers have almost healed.
Another neat thing out on the water were the schools of cisco that would come through on the finder. One school was under the boat only 10' down. I couldn't figure out what the large signal on the finder was until we looked over the side. With the water clarity we could look down and see them swimming. They were circling each other, about 25-30 of them and just moving off to the south kind of in a loose ball. We saw several schools on the finder from 30' down to 70'-75'. It was pretty cool.
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Boy, that IS a nice cut. And ya, that tail has seen better days. Thanks for sharing the story, info, and picture.
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[sly]That lake still surprises me. I can’t believe the size of the cutts as well as the Macs. Great fish!!
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Thanks, it was a nice one. The best part is that it is still swimming. All fins in tact.
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Nice fish.. Did you get a chance to weigh it?
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Wow, what a HOG! Thanks for sharing
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Congrats to you! nice fish
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I have to agree Bear Lake never ceases to amaze me with the fish that come out of there. BTW, PDS . What was the water traffic like up there while you were on Bear Lake ?
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The water traffic was basically non-existent on Monday and Tuesday. There were a few PWC's zooming around, but not much else.
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I didn't get to weigh it, but I estimate between 7-8 lbs. It had quite a gut on it.
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Almost makes me want to go up there and give it a try.
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Nice fish!!
Oh by the way, you can try jigging for those balled up Cisco. Here is a link for a set of lures you can get for them.
[url "http://www.myfishingandcamping.com/eMerchantPro/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=30631&idcategory=80"]http://www.myfishingandcamping.com/eMerchantPro/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=30631&idcategory=80[/url]
Just clip a big weight on the bottom and lower the stuff into the bait ball, then jig up and down, but always keep your line tight. [
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Congrats on the nice cutthroat. What you seen with the cisco is very rare to witness first hand. I've seen it twice now and it really is cool to look over and see the cisco in the summer time.
I checked some nice cutts that were caught on Sunday and some nice rainbows that were caught off the marina area from shore. The kids were having a blast.
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I have never fished Bear lake but i will be next month. Were you trolling or jigging. Any tips will help. thanks
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Try both. Most fish will be deeper, at least 35' or more. Although some of the cutts will still be shallow, most of the bigger fish will be deep. If you have downriggers, you can run rapala type lures behind the ball. Flatfish also seem to work.
If you jig. 1/2 to 3/4 oz jigs with a 3-4 inch tube tipped with some type of meat, (chub, sucker, carp, or better yet cisco if you have it), can be good.
One thing about Bear Lake, I have never had "fast" fishing, although some on this site have posted that they have. I have yet to experience it. But it does hold some big fish.
I was in 80' of water and that fish came right off the bottom. I am no expert, I only get up once or twice a year. I was targeting macks and thought for sure that I had a mack on.
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