I hit Deep Creek for a few hours in my tube on Thursday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed by the dirt bags taking sacks of fish out of there. They had some pretty nice ones, and I heard them mention a cutthroat too. Unfortunately my phone wouldn't get reception, so I wasn't able to call them in. Well, on to the fishing.
Water was 51, which was warmer than expected. I started getting hits in 18' of water right off the bat, but I kept missing them. I finally hooked one and it was just a little 12" bow. I began to move to shallower, weedier water and hooked into a nice one.[inline "bow small.JPG"] That ended up being the best of the day I think. I fished all across the bay and had hits from 13 to 3', but most came in 7-13'. I fished a double rig with a purple mohair leech and a black/peacock crystal bugger. Both produced pretty well,[inline "bow 6 small.JPG"][inline "bow 5 small.JPG"][inline "bow 4 small.JPG"][inline "bow 3 small.JPG"][inline "bow 2 small.JPG"] but I missed more than I hooked. I ended up with 12 bows, and one cutthroat.[inline "cutt small.JPG"] That was a first for me at Deep Creek. I kept a few small to medium fish for dinner and packed up just before dark. I have to say, I was a little disappointed by the fight of the fish. Usually the Kamloops I catch in Idaho fight like crazy, but these felt like any other trout. Still fun, just not as crazy as usual. It looks like that may be about my last trip of the year as the forecast looks pretty nasty. Oh well, it was a good season.
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deep crrek has cutts in it?? I thought it only had bows n lmb and smb what deep creek you go to seem as there are 3 I think in idaho was it the one off of the weston exit some of those bows look fat nice and healthy was the water weedy on surface real bad which boat ramp where you closest to the good or the bad one nice pise thoe congrats on the catch take it you where fly fishing..
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deepcreek is one of the few resivores that has natural cutts left. there is actualy a 2 cutt limit and i dont think there are any size constrictions. this is why the close the first creek area from may to mid june. there are still a few natural spawning kokanie in there as well. but i dont think there are any smb
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From what I understand there were largemouth in there at one point, but they drained it and never put them back in. There may be a few left, hence the mention of them in the regulations. I've never heard of smb in there though. I wish we had more places for them, but they're not there. I was fishing north of the dam, the weeds weren't bad. I saw a smalll accumulation of surface weeds up against the shore where the dam meets the point where the outhouse and parking lot are. I was using unweighted flies on a type II sinking line. There were large boats on the water, so you should have no trouble launching.
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I know that it is perfectly legal to keep a couple of cutthroat from there, but I sure wish people wouldn't. They aren't really part of the "put and take" trout plan.
It is a small wild native cutthroat population, that they are trying to help stay viable. Eventually if the natural spawning picks up they will probably try and run the lake as mostly a cutthroat fishery.
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I wouldn't mind that a bit. They could try to make it a trophy cutt fishery and then we wouldn't have so many dirt bags with their diapers, powerbait jars, and worm containers littering the place.
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+1
I am hoping that they will make it into a barbless and trophy water. It can grow some nice fish if they will let it.
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Definitely. I've seen some over 2' as it is, and if they could keep the freezer fillers away, it could grow some monsters.
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there are alot in there that are in the 2lb range. i didnt do to go last ice season but 2 years ago we caught 3 over 23 inches. (all returned) but we had days we would bring home 4 or 5 fish over 18 inches. Around 10 years ago or more they were traping the cutts and taking them up the creeks and into the upper res. trying to increase there numbers but i just dont think the water lvls are consistant enough. I wouldnt be aposed if they wanted to make it a trophy fishery, with as many resivores within the preson to malad area i wish there were more. but deepcreek is the ONLY resivore that i will keep trout out of, so i would hate to loose that.
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That's a good point, the trout in there are pretty tasty, whereas they taste like moss in most of the other reservoirs. Maybe they could put a slot limit or lower the limit. Not that would stop people apparently.
I would definitely have to say that the water level in the upper reservoir isn't adequate. I wonder if they'll ever fill that back up and stock it again?
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we must be talking about a totaly diff deepcreek the one I fish I only catch lmb and smb with some bows hear and there and have really never caught or seen any cutts come out of there.. The one I know of is between downey and malad area not devils crk but deepcreek it's a pretty small res.. And I'm positive there are no koke in there never really remember it being draind eather I know it gets way low because of the farmers and there irigation abuse... Please corect me if I'm wrong but you guys must be on a dif res
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Are you meaning the reservoir that is just off of I-15 at the top of Malad pass? If so that is Devil's Creek Res. It has trout, bass, and kokes. Is there a different one between Downey and Malad somewhere?
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yes there is another one I know devils creek well grew up around here there is a res off of I 15 the weston preston exit there is a res there called deep creek with smb lmb and bows that's all that I have ever caught in the 16 pluss years I have been fishing it's on the small side little biger than hawkins res
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On the Weston Highway there is Deep Creek Res and further up is Weston Res. Deep Creek used to have bass, but they were removed a few years back. Now it has rainbows, a few wild cutthroats, and I have heard mention of a few koke left.
Weston Res is smaller (more the size you mentioned) and has bass, perch, and rainbows.
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I know weston as well the depcreek there I fished this year a few times and knocked the bas dead never scene a perch in there ever or koke or cutts this is why I'm way
as I have fished it many times in my life time which isn't very long so far but I have been a avvid fishermen for along time at the least 6 years I have been fishing about 300 times a year well three hundred days a year I fish no exaduration I've been fishing for about 16 years give or take that I can remember but only 6 of those avidly and in the time I have been fishing I have yet to see or catch or hear of any one pulling cutts and kokes out of there obviously we are talking about the same place now but for some reason I have never scene a cutt or koke and I fish that place fluently open water and frozen deck frozen usually just bows ocasionely a bass but not as offten as bows but open water I mostly catch bass probly 6 out of 10 casts brings in a smb or lmb just this year I caught some many of them none larger than around 16'' at biggest smallest being 3'' on flys larger on curly tail grubs back next to that old broken up boat ramp and back in the little cove inlet area west of that.. Next to the dam and east side of the res I catch bows that's it deep mid and shallow.. If there are koke in there I would like to know how there being caught I have a hard time believing there are cutts and koke in there not saying there not but it's hard for me to believe it
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they dont plant kokes in there anymore. they had plans to last summer but didnt for some reason but back in the early to mid 2000's they planted kokanie in there for i think 3 years. the cutts arnt very numerous, but they are there, like said above the proclamation even states there is a 2 cutt limit. i noticed 2 years ago also that we caught alot of hybrids, but looked like there was very little cutt in them just enough that there gillplate looked a bit difrent from a normal bow.
As for the upper res. there is no way they could do it like the water lvl is now. it was back in some of the high water years when they were able to store some water in it.
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Back in the early 90s you could go to Deep Creek and catch 2 and 3 lb cutts out of there just about anytime. Idaho fish and game stocking reports never show any Bass of any kind planted in this resivoir, but I was suprized to see that there were some Kokanee put in there some time ago. I have never seen a Bass come out of there.
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As far as I know, the only reservoirs in the area with smb are Oneida, and a couple in Condie that somebody must have dumped in there.
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there are smb in the following lamon, twinlakes,deepcreek,onida, strongarm, condie, foster, glendale, and oxford... There is smb lmb in these res... At least I have caught bolth out of all of these ... I'm starting to think the reason I havnt caught many trout out of deepcreek is because I mainly fish it for bass I don't target the trout I'm willing to bet a very large amount of money there are bolth smb and lmb in deepcreek as that is what I catch out of there when I go there this sumer I caught quite a few of them.... If you fish for them you will catch them I like deepcreek due to it isn't an over used place it has it's moments though that it is packed full of recreators and doc pigs that have no common curticy to move off of the doc when trying to launch and unload.. Another reason I got a tube don't have to deal with doc huggers that have no respect what so ever...
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I thought that Strong Arm Res was one that frequently went dry?? Are you meaning little Strong Arm Res below Treasureton? Not Treasureton? It used to be named Strong Arm also.
When you have fished it and Oxford how did you do? When were you there last?
I thought the pelicans had pretty much cleaned Oxford out the last couple of years.
Sorry for so many questions!
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