Fishing Forum

My fishing friends/family are pretty dedicated gorge hard deckers. But the elements of chance dictated that it would be very convenient to fish big blue instead. So we left at 3 am for my first bear lake fishing experience.

We were fishing before it got light. The first few hours were spent trying to entice fish to bite. I had fish charge my jigs, sometimes traveling 20 vertical feet, only to turn away at the last second. I persistently changed rigs every time one was rejected. Finally around ten I caught a nice cuttie and switched both rods to that offering. Several minutes later I had a fish rush my jig and absolutely hammer it. I thought it might be big because of the hit but then it came up pretty easily. Once it hit about thirty foot mark it decided that was enough. It turned and burned 50 feet right back to the bottom. I just started to scream for help. Keep in mind that I'm using the yellow eagle claw seven dollar fiberglass rod. After 15 minutes and several runs I iced my biggest Mack ever. A thirty in beauty.

Ten minutes later my dads starts yelling and we help him land a 28 in her. He then follows that up with a 30 incher that was a twin to my first. After I helped him land that one I got back to my tent and there was a fish eyeballing my jig. I twitched it once and reeled in a nice 20" cut. As I was letting back out a fish charged off the bottom thirty feet and pasted my jig. I set the hook into a monster. Twenty minutes later I landed a super thick/fat 33" fish that weighed 22. Even though it only had a few inches on the other fish it dwarfed them. The only way I can describe it is the difference betwee n a mature/imature bucks body. After taking pics and rebating I started letting out. As my jig defended two fish charged it. Iwasnt able to cock my bell in time. The line just went slack. I reeled up the excess and set the hook. This time my brothers family took turns reeling in another 30 inch Mac.

We fished for another hour with only lookers on the sonar then left for home at 2. There were six fishermen in our group. Me and my dad landed 5 Mack's(The smallest was 9 pounds) and 4 cut throats. The other four fishermen didn't get bit. My brother stayed and caught a twelve pound Mack at dark. All macs are still swimming. The first two pics are of the big one. I think I might try bear lake again someday.
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Way to put the smack down on those fish today. I fished Fri and Sat. On Fri it was slow. I never caught a trout, but my buddies landed one laker and one cutt. That was off the rockpile. I moved over the pump house on Sat. and did much better. Cutts, lakers and whitefish all in 23' of water! I lost one monster laker that I got to see twice. It was a big one and had to be 20+ lbs. I was sick when it simply came unbuttoned. Anyway, what a great weekend and the ice was excellent too.
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Give me a break! I fished half day Friday and Saturday and never got a bite. Looks like you found the fish! Congrats! Those are some amazing fish.
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That's to bad your bigun came unbuttoned. I think every fisherman knows that feeling. Thank you for all your great posts. I don't think I would have been willing to give it a try if I hadn't read about all your great fish. I'm heading back up Friday. I have family in star valley that are dedicated Jackson lakers that want to go. Just curios, what's the biggest laker you have caught and seen caught out of there?
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sounds like your gorging efforts adapted well to the BL enivironmon. Well done. We had a few looks and follows, followed by middle fin flippage. But they're out there! Had a few different offerings - curious - what worked for ya?

Definintely had a number of close sniffs, that turned to diss-es. Sure to try again while we still have ice.

Congrats - sound like a good day out. Thanks for the report. Encouraging that someone got into more than a sunburn!

The sunburn was the second best part! It gave me a big itch for some big walleye chasin in the tube. The skill I acquired at the gorge that helped the most was using my finder correctly. Every fish caught came from the bottom but had to swim up 20 feet for the jig. This is a little trick the finder taught us at the gorge. Most fish investigate. The farther you can make them come to do it the more likely they are to hit. Wasn't using anything ya'll don't have in your boxes. I'm out and want Sportsman's to have some left when I go on Thursday.
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Very nice fish. It's a hard thing to break twenty over there. Beautiful fat fish. I've wondered about suspending a presentation up higher off the bottom, kind of like you would troll over them. Going have to try it.
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Where's the pic of the 22 lb lake trout?
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The fish in the first pic is 22lbs I know cause I weighed it!!! My bro is a pretty large dude at 6 foot 5 300# so fish just dont look as big if hes holdin them! Thing is he seems to hold alot of them, all of you that are planning to head to the big blue and equal his success, well, good luck is all I can say. Jon you are one hell of a fish hound congrats again on an awesome catch!!
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Still having to protect your big/younger brother. Thanks
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Not you, just your fish!! Here are the two fish I caught after two days of fishin!! One of them is in the lake the other my tummy! Gotta say those bear lake fish are pretty tasty! Oh and nothin makes the wife look better than a big slimy fish in her hands!!!!
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[indent]RDRRM8E said

They weren't catching fish because they haven't got a clue how to but you changed that by broadcasting it on the internet. Great job, champ! Every ding dong who reads BFT will now be doing it now and killing fish you and I would release. BTW, that technique has been around a long time and has been really effective up there because not many people use it. It's pretty obvious you'll share what you want without much thought except to pat your own back. I'm done.

This is a copy of a pm I received from RDRRM8E. It was the last in a string just like it. I just thought everyone should know what kind of a guy he is. I don't share to pat my own back, I share to contribute to a great site. I so enjoy reading about everyone's adventures, and I feel like I should contribute some of mine.

To all of you that are self appointed to the mac protection committee. Get over it. All you can do is educate people. If you have something nasty to say to me say it on the public forum.

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LOL! I have received PM's exactly like that in the past. It is just something you have to get used to. People sure do like to get all nasty in the background because pestering someone for giving up the goods is not allowed on the forum.

The bass huggers are no where near as bad a the "mack pack" that start up every time there is a decent laker. It is a shame because they have run off oen of the better bear lake anglers on here from 2 years ago. And yes they may have run him off but he still sends me emails of big lakers he catches every weekend, he even eats his limit of them too. He let the "Turds of Bass" [] get to him. Don't let the Turds of Bass win! Keep on posting up.

DNR set up the limit process and well you followed the rules so don't fret about the monkeys climbing on your back. Just see it as you had an amazing day at a great place if you received PM's like that.

For every un-happy bear lake local mack pack girl you offended there are many more that are grateful for you sharing your info. Who knows your info might have made a few members or lurkers go from a skunking to an epic catching day on the big blue.
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Uh i guess i'm missing something. I didn't see were you gave out a top secret technique.
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Exactly!
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[quote fishjon] Every fish caught came from the bottom but had to swim up 20 feet for the jig. This is a little trick the finder taught us at the gorge. Most fish investigate. The farther you can make them come to do it the more likely they are to hit. [/quote]

If this is the super secret technique that got the scathing PM, then there are some dim bulbs out there fishing!![sly]
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Exactly
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[sly] Man, I had no idea the goal was to trick the fish into biting, jeez all those other guys who weren't catching anything really must have been doing something wrong..according to the PM.[:p]
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The one question i have is were you tipping whatever you were using with anything? Cisco? I have some really good looking tackle that i have seen others use on other lakes for catching big lakers and they never tip it with anything but cant get that to work on lakers in Bear Lake. Some lures/jigs look ok tipped and others look really bad (i.e. the cut bait throws off the natural action of the lure/jig). Just wondering if anyone is catching these bear lake lakers without using cisco and maybe a tip on how to do it?
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They aren't "guys" they're "ding dongs."
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