Fishing Forum

Fished Cascade Saturday. Picked up relatives camping at Poison Creek, and trolled towards island. Nothing on the way there. Not even graphing fish. When we approached the island, a trophy-sized fish hit the pop gear with a vengeance, and a long fight ensued, with a "newbie" nephew on the other end. Eventually we landed a 20" rainbow, quite fat. The downrigger at 2 colors did the trick. We got regular action at the island from smaller 'bows until the wind just got too bad. (what's new?). Mike
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Cool that your nephew got a really good fish!

Nice report.

Idaho wind......don't ya just love it this year?!!
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Thanks for the report.

Windriver
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Hey Mike, I was up there this weekend as well. Friday afternoon, the smallmouths were hitting my bluish kastmaster hard around Van Wyck but I only caught a few perch. Saturday morning was awesome - I got into the jumbos and caught a bunch of pigs and not even one dink. It made up for all the days I've spent this year fighting the wind from my pontoon or tube and not catching anything. I didn't catch any trout. Boy, that pond is a fickle mistress.











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Untangler,
You're right about it being a "fickle mistress". I've been fishing it since the 50's, and it is amazing how it has constantly changed in regard to where the fish are, what lures work, what species are most prevelant, etc. Those perch are beauts! I wanted to fish for perch north of the city dock, but since the relatives were on the northern end, and with the wind blowing water in the boat from the front, rear, and side, I decided against it. When we pulled in to the island area, there must have been at least 20 boats; 20 minutes later we were the only boat in sight!! By the way, I still want to get up there with my kokanee gear and try to find the kokanee that were so easy to catch 5-6 years ago. Either there numbers have dropped, or nobody is targeting them. Again, nice fish. Mike
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those are monster perch. maybe the biggest ive ever seen. how many smallies did you catch
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15" perch wow ! and yes lets hear more of the smallmouths....................[angelic]
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I wasn't targeting the smallies but after catching a few on my perch gear I put a small kastmaster with a bluish tint on one of my rods and caught 13 in about an hour. They were about 12"-16" - nothing huge. I also caught one decent bucketmouth that was probably 3 lbs. They were hanging along a ridge where the water depth went from 12' to about 8' and then back down again. I love to catch smallmouths but don't target them much in Cascade because I don't have a boat and mostly focus on perch. I was fishing by some guys on Saturday who were in a club tourney and they were catching the heck out of the bass on crankbaits along the weedlines in about 6' of water.

Mike, I've talked to a lot of people up there over the years and can't remember the last time somebody was specifically targeting kokanee. I caught a few ice fishing this winter so there are still some in there. It would be fun to give it a try. I'll be up there again this weekend and hope it continues to be hot but this is the worst weekend for for peaceful fishing with all the ski boats and jet skis roaring around. I'm about ready for the rivers to calm down.
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Wow!!! Those are some awesome perch. Congrats.

Windriver
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I might be coming up there at the end of July or first of August. Hoping to get into some of those big perch. What is the chances of finding them and what might be there choice of jig or depth or lake location. Also would love to meet you any BFT'ers while up there.
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dont have a boat and catching them off the bank. man can you pull my boat or split the gas i'd take you out. 96 186 champion w/ 2010 175 pro xs.
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[quote idahopanfish]I might be coming up there at the end of July or first of August. Hoping to get into some of those big perch. What is the chances of finding them and what might be there choice of jig or depth or lake location. Also would love to meet you any BFT'ers while up there.[/quote]

Let me know, Michael. I will meet you there. I have a place at Cascade and a boat.

I'm headed out in the morning for Spearfish, SD for my wife's all school reunion and will be back about the middle of July. Coming back thru Yellowstone and hoping to check out Henry's Lake. Unfortunately, I won't have my boat or fishing gear but just want to do a look see. I've never been there.
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Spearfish hey,
My Mom & Dad were from Sturgis and I was born in Rapid City. Be sure to go and take a look at Crazy Horse, I have been watching that for years. I think it is amazing!

Yes I do wan to get in on those perch again and to thick I might catch a 15'er, man that would be soooo cool!
I would love to take you up on the boat offer, would there be room for my wife Gloria as well?. I had planed on pulling our little 12'er. It's the same boat I caught the 14"ers out of last October, but since I bought it earlier this year I have put it through some changes, I hope improvement, but it is still a small craft and the wind. if any, would definitly ruin the moment.
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It's a 20' bass boat, plenty of room. I'll check with you when I get back.

Small world. Sherrie's dad was a minister in Spearfish. We saw Crazy Horse in 1966 and then again in 2006. Quite the carving if they ever get it done. No doubt we will go see it again.
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Just another Cascade update. Fished yesterday (6/28) morning and late afternoon.

Was nice and calm in the morning and did pretty good.. targeting bass and managed about 20 or so Smallies. Only one that was respectable at about 14.5" the rest with the exception of maybe 4 or 5 were under 12". We also caught a couple perch on bass gear and threw them back.

In the afternoon the wind had kicked up - no surprise there... Fishing was pretty good though.. probably boated another 20-25 bass again - mostly small ones but did get four or five that went 14"-15". There was a decent perch bite on our bass gear so we decided to keep a few of those. All nice sized fish too - caught one that was 15"! In total I think we caught about 15 Perch and kept 7 to fillet and take home.

Water temps were up as is the level of the lake compared to a week ago.




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It is getting hard to distinguish between the bass and the perch. Maybe not .... the perch are bigger!! [shocked][laugh][laugh]

Beautiful fish!
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good golly miss molly ! those perch are HUGE ! man i wish i could go up there bassin' what did you catch them on ?
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those perch are monsters. usually you can catch a few 3 or 4 lb smallies each trip but they seem to be smaller so far. oh yeah. nice boat
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wow very nice pretty hard to let a decent size perch go as they grill up so tasty [cool]
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