05-09-2011, 04:26 PM
Haven't posted in a while (heck, haven't fished in a while), and was finally able to get out. Here is a copy of an email I sent out to my family members...by the way, driving past Strawberry on the way back...100 still iced over. First time I've ever seen that in 8 years.
[size 2]Randy and Arron's Pelican Lake report, May 6-7, 2011.
Arron and I left Thursday evening (5/5) right after Fish Club (Murray Pond youth volunteer thing for our dedicated hunter hours) and were checked into our motel finally at about 11:00 p.m. Thursday night at the "America's Best Value Inn" in fabulous Roosevelt Utah. We took my 16' aluminum boat behind Arrons Jeep.
We launched at Pelican Lake on Friday morning at about 6:45 a.m. or so. The outside temperature was in the low 50's, but was sunny and calm with zero wind. Conditions looked optimal, but the first thing we found out was that the water was higher than I've ever seen it at Pelican Lake, and was going to require some different fishing tactics. The second thing we noticed...no bites till the water warmed up...which wasn't until about 11:00 a.m. The last few years, we have been accustomed to being able to throw lures just at the edge of the weeds around the lake, and if careful, very few snags would happen. This year, with the water so high, the edge of the weed beds were submerged sometimes 50 yards farther out than what was sticking up above the water. We were forced to use all weedless lures, which, we have found out in the past, results in just as many bites, but fewer actual hookups. With the cold and wet year we've had so far, the water was high and cold and the magic 55 degree water tempurature didn't happen till about 11:00 when finally the bass started biting. And furthermore...you had to throw INTO the weeds to get bites! Up until then all we had scored were a couple of Bluegills. At 11:00 it was like a switch turned on (for me anyway...), and it was on for about an hour. A strong gust of wind came up suddenly out of the west almost exactly at noon and we were literally forced off the water it was so bad. We went back into Roosevelt for lunch and hoped that the wind would die down later that afternoon. It didn't. About 3:00 p.m. we launched again in the gale force winds, still hoping it would die down. It never did. We fought the wind the rest of the afternoon until we finally gave up around 6:30 p.m. and went back to the motel cussing and swearing about the wind the whole time. I had caught 5 Largemouth Bass and 6 Bluegills in that magic hour between 11:00 a.m. and noon...and then caught one more Largemouth Bass miracle in the wind that afternoon for a total of 6 Largemouth Bass and 6 Bluegills on Friday. Arron only caught 1 Largemouth Bass and 2 Bluegills the whole day. It was a pretty poor showing for Pelican Lake and it reminded me why you never go to Pelican Lake for just one day as your chances of getting blown off the water are usually pretty good.
Saturday, Arron wanted to sleep in (Why get up early when the fish don't bite till later in the morning? was his logic) so I set the clocks forward so that he would think it was later than it really was. My plan backfired on me as the alarm somehow didn't go off and we still didn't even get up till 6:30, which is about an hour later than I wanted to get up. We did the continental breakfast and headed back out to the lake. It seemed like noon to me, but was actually only about 8:00 when we launched. Air temp was warmer than the day before, high 50's or so, and even the water was a little warmer...but was still under the magic 55 degree mark. Zero wind and excellent conditions...other than the water temp. Once again, the bite didn't start till almost 11:00 on Saturday, but the difference was that the wind never came up at all and we were able to fish under beatiful and calm conditions the entire day. We found a shallow land-locked section of the lake that we were able to get the boat into and we spent almost 3 hours there catching bass and bluegills. The fish were all over the place in there and it was fun sight fishing for the bass (see pic of boat floating in 1 foot of water). We were tired and hungry and hot but the fish were biting and we were having fun. We finally pulled out around 7:00 p.m. and headed home. The weedless Texas rigged worms hot ticket. Any color. I also used Creatures but would snag up a lot. Clackers and spinners did not work at all. We had to fish IN the weeds to get fish. Outside of the weeds resulted in no fish. By the end of the day, I had caught 10 Largemouth Bass and 7 Bluegill, and Arron ended up with 3 Largmouth Bass and 6 Bluegill.
We have caught Largemouth before using Bluegill rigs, but this time no basses were caught using that method. We never really targetted the Bluegills, as we were hoping to catch bass with the Bluegill rigs, but had we actually targetted them you could have caught hundreds. We found many schools of bluegill and could see them in the shallow pools. Many many basses were missed using the weedless rigs, so the bite to catch ratio wasn't as good as it usually is, but there was lots of action. My arm is sore today from casting and setting the hook. Also, it was a challenge once a fish was hooked to get it back to the boat as you literally had to drag it through the weeds or over the weeds to get it back to the boat. Fireline was definitely the line of choice and although we lost quite a few fish in the weeds, we never had a breakoff. We each had multiple poles and curiously, each of us had exactly one pole failure. The tips broke off of each of our flimsiest poles we had!
I didn't take any pictures of the fish that I caught as none were very big. All the basses were between 10 and 14 inches, and the bluegills ranged from 3 inches to 10 inches.
We took a picture of one of Arron's bass (attached) as it was his first one on Saturday and only his 2nd one of the whole trip...and he was wondering if he was going to catch any more at all! Weather was great on Saturday. Here are the totals. Kind of a poor total for a Pelican Lake trip, but fun and challenging this year none the less.
Friday: Randy: 6 Bass and 6 Bluegill, Arron: 1 Bass and 2 Bluegill.
Saturday: Randy: 10 Bass and 7 Bluegill, Arron: 3 Bass and 6 Bluegill.
Totals:
Randy: 16 Bass and 13 Bluegill, 29 total fish.
Arron: 4 Bass and 8 Bluegill, 12 total fish.
41 fish Total.
That is all.
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[size 2]Randy and Arron's Pelican Lake report, May 6-7, 2011.
Arron and I left Thursday evening (5/5) right after Fish Club (Murray Pond youth volunteer thing for our dedicated hunter hours) and were checked into our motel finally at about 11:00 p.m. Thursday night at the "America's Best Value Inn" in fabulous Roosevelt Utah. We took my 16' aluminum boat behind Arrons Jeep.
We launched at Pelican Lake on Friday morning at about 6:45 a.m. or so. The outside temperature was in the low 50's, but was sunny and calm with zero wind. Conditions looked optimal, but the first thing we found out was that the water was higher than I've ever seen it at Pelican Lake, and was going to require some different fishing tactics. The second thing we noticed...no bites till the water warmed up...which wasn't until about 11:00 a.m. The last few years, we have been accustomed to being able to throw lures just at the edge of the weeds around the lake, and if careful, very few snags would happen. This year, with the water so high, the edge of the weed beds were submerged sometimes 50 yards farther out than what was sticking up above the water. We were forced to use all weedless lures, which, we have found out in the past, results in just as many bites, but fewer actual hookups. With the cold and wet year we've had so far, the water was high and cold and the magic 55 degree water tempurature didn't happen till about 11:00 when finally the bass started biting. And furthermore...you had to throw INTO the weeds to get bites! Up until then all we had scored were a couple of Bluegills. At 11:00 it was like a switch turned on (for me anyway...), and it was on for about an hour. A strong gust of wind came up suddenly out of the west almost exactly at noon and we were literally forced off the water it was so bad. We went back into Roosevelt for lunch and hoped that the wind would die down later that afternoon. It didn't. About 3:00 p.m. we launched again in the gale force winds, still hoping it would die down. It never did. We fought the wind the rest of the afternoon until we finally gave up around 6:30 p.m. and went back to the motel cussing and swearing about the wind the whole time. I had caught 5 Largemouth Bass and 6 Bluegills in that magic hour between 11:00 a.m. and noon...and then caught one more Largemouth Bass miracle in the wind that afternoon for a total of 6 Largemouth Bass and 6 Bluegills on Friday. Arron only caught 1 Largemouth Bass and 2 Bluegills the whole day. It was a pretty poor showing for Pelican Lake and it reminded me why you never go to Pelican Lake for just one day as your chances of getting blown off the water are usually pretty good.
Saturday, Arron wanted to sleep in (Why get up early when the fish don't bite till later in the morning? was his logic) so I set the clocks forward so that he would think it was later than it really was. My plan backfired on me as the alarm somehow didn't go off and we still didn't even get up till 6:30, which is about an hour later than I wanted to get up. We did the continental breakfast and headed back out to the lake. It seemed like noon to me, but was actually only about 8:00 when we launched. Air temp was warmer than the day before, high 50's or so, and even the water was a little warmer...but was still under the magic 55 degree mark. Zero wind and excellent conditions...other than the water temp. Once again, the bite didn't start till almost 11:00 on Saturday, but the difference was that the wind never came up at all and we were able to fish under beatiful and calm conditions the entire day. We found a shallow land-locked section of the lake that we were able to get the boat into and we spent almost 3 hours there catching bass and bluegills. The fish were all over the place in there and it was fun sight fishing for the bass (see pic of boat floating in 1 foot of water). We were tired and hungry and hot but the fish were biting and we were having fun. We finally pulled out around 7:00 p.m. and headed home. The weedless Texas rigged worms hot ticket. Any color. I also used Creatures but would snag up a lot. Clackers and spinners did not work at all. We had to fish IN the weeds to get fish. Outside of the weeds resulted in no fish. By the end of the day, I had caught 10 Largemouth Bass and 7 Bluegill, and Arron ended up with 3 Largmouth Bass and 6 Bluegill.
We have caught Largemouth before using Bluegill rigs, but this time no basses were caught using that method. We never really targetted the Bluegills, as we were hoping to catch bass with the Bluegill rigs, but had we actually targetted them you could have caught hundreds. We found many schools of bluegill and could see them in the shallow pools. Many many basses were missed using the weedless rigs, so the bite to catch ratio wasn't as good as it usually is, but there was lots of action. My arm is sore today from casting and setting the hook. Also, it was a challenge once a fish was hooked to get it back to the boat as you literally had to drag it through the weeds or over the weeds to get it back to the boat. Fireline was definitely the line of choice and although we lost quite a few fish in the weeds, we never had a breakoff. We each had multiple poles and curiously, each of us had exactly one pole failure. The tips broke off of each of our flimsiest poles we had!
I didn't take any pictures of the fish that I caught as none were very big. All the basses were between 10 and 14 inches, and the bluegills ranged from 3 inches to 10 inches.
We took a picture of one of Arron's bass (attached) as it was his first one on Saturday and only his 2nd one of the whole trip...and he was wondering if he was going to catch any more at all! Weather was great on Saturday. Here are the totals. Kind of a poor total for a Pelican Lake trip, but fun and challenging this year none the less.
Friday: Randy: 6 Bass and 6 Bluegill, Arron: 1 Bass and 2 Bluegill.
Saturday: Randy: 10 Bass and 7 Bluegill, Arron: 3 Bass and 6 Bluegill.
Totals:
Randy: 16 Bass and 13 Bluegill, 29 total fish.
Arron: 4 Bass and 8 Bluegill, 12 total fish.
41 fish Total.
That is all.
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] and your report is encouraging because plastics are my best approach and I seem to catch more than with the hard stuff. Thanks.
ies', 10-12 inchers. The best bite was a dark Senko but landed fish on large streamer flies, jerkbaits, cranks, spinnerbaits (when the wind came up), and even a frog fish. A pound and a half was the largest. Water temps were still only 56 when we got blown off around 1:00pm. Got soaked on our drive to the ramp.