It was a gorgeous morning out on East Canyon saturday, I can't believe the amount of boats and shore fisherman. Fishing was rather slow for us, only landed one fat 16" cutt about mid morning. We must have been doing something wrong because one boat in particular tracking parallel to use hit about 4 fish within 5 minutes. We are still trying to figure out how to do this boat fishing, only second time out. Anyway, here is a pci of the one we did land.
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Thanks for posting your report and pic. There are many factors when it come to catching fish while trolling at EC. Speed should be about 1 to 2 mph, if you don't have any way to tell how fast you are going, try to match the speed of someone that is catching fish. Another thing that will help you is the depth you are fishing. When we were there the other day, I was using an inline bullet weight and a rapala. Other small inline lures like wedding rings work well behind a dodgers but there are many lures that will work for smaller trout. Another thing is location. While you can catch fish where you took the pic of the bow you were holding, a better location, imo, is near the back of the lake, toward the resort. Hope this helps.
WH2
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Thanks so much for the information. While I think we had the speed thing nailed, I think the depth and location factors were what we were missing. I have yet to invest in a downrigger and some of the other methods I have tried seem to be lackluster. First time at the reservoir, next time we will definitely try closer to the resort. We were headed that way when the wind picked up and we decided we had better not push our luck in my little boat. Second trip out on the 14" aluminum, still gaining confidence - but loving every minute of it.
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Although downriggers help as the water warms, you really don't need them early in the year. Bows hang near the surface, top 20' this early. I have even seen folks slow trolling, around .5 mph flies. What lures were you using?
WH2
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+1 on what wiperhunter2 has to say. they are most likely on the surface right now. pop gear and a wedding ring with PB, 50-75ft out, long enough so its not popping out of the water, no weight, and small finesse crankbait rapalas might work. Havent been to EC with my boat this year but this years stocked fish seem to love these two methods everywhere else ive been. There's fish holding in the stream so i would assume theres some in the lake closer to the resort.
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We usually fish EC spring and fall before and after the skiers and wave runners chop up the water. That water looked really nice and calm. I do it in a 14' boat also, and the wind sure can get "hairy". We've had our best luck with black and white and gold and black #7 Rapalas, trolling about 2 mph.
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This trout caught at Hyrum earlier this year, but shows the Rapala pretty well.
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This one caught at EC April 2013, on same Black and Gold rapala.
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We used several rapalas as well as some wedding rings with flasher. Threw a few misc rigs on as well. I will have to get a little more creative in the future. It sounds like I will have to try some pop gear next trip. Heading up to fish Bear Lake this weekend. I know most of the streams by heart, but this will be the first time out on the boat. Any advise?
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There have not been any recent reports about BL, so I would suggest you PM Bearlakefishguy. Myself, if I were headed up there I would try fishing the Rock pile, you can either troll it or jig it. If trolling, use big Flatfish or Rapalas and get as close to the bottom as possible. If jigging, use 4 or 5" tube jigs, in pearl or salt and pepper and tip them with cisco or sucker meat. Good luck if you go and please let us know how you do. WH2
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I did PM Bearlakefishguy yesterday and he responded. Thanks for the advise, I will try it out and definitely post my success or lack thereof on Monday morning. Fortunately we have a couple limits of cisco in the freezer in Bloomington just itching to feed some macks. My initial plan was to launch at cisco and troll that area and over to the rock pile and Gus Rich point area. I hear yellow flatfish are a good choice on Bear Lake. I may have to hit Sporties on the way up to get a few more tube jigs.
Thanks again for the info, I will try to reciprocate when able.
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I was up there Saturday and Sunday as well and like WH2 mentioned, wedding rings , or in my case kokanee assassins (same thing damn near) was the killer in purple/pink tipped with pink maggots down about 15-25 feet trolling at 1.5 MPH about 36 inches behind a pink/purple dodger. I was in the general area you were fishing as well, heck maybe you seen us, dunno...white and burgundy Tahoe boat.
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I think we did see you. I think you were the ones that hooked 4 fish within about 10 minutes as you passed us going the opposite direction. [
] We were wondering what the heck we were doing wrong. Were those kokes you were nailing or trout?
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I love trolling for trout, it is one of my favorite things. I troll with a rapala fairly often, but when a standard rapala isn't working we switch it up and go to a flat fish size F7 which can be found at sportsmans fairly cheap.
The other thing I have noticed is sometimes leaded line works much better as it gets you a bit deeper. Since I have not been able to purchase reels for the line, nor the line for all my reels, and clamp sinker will also get you a fair amount deeper.
Usually let out about 40-50 feet of line, attach the clamp sinker, and let out another 50-70 feet of line. This should drop you about 10-20 feet deeper depending on your speed and the size of the weight.
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I concur with the Rapala trolling technique. Works very well for all trout and at different depths. Have also had a lot of success fast trolling larger Rapalas #9-#11 (fast enough to have them nearly pop out of the water, and then back off slightly). I find this method to be effective when going after larger pisciverous fish, mostly browns and sometimes large cutts or bows....and this can work well very close to shore early and late in the day as the bigger fish will get aggressive in the shallows chasing dads and minnows. Colors can all be good, but my all time favorite is gold and black, followed closely by silver and black. Have caught some large fish this way.
For smaller fish, #5 or #7 in gold/black, silver/black or rainbow always good, fished to the right depth. Good luck, RW
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We were catching rainbows, never have caught any kokanee at EC before. Do koke's still exist in EC? I know this, that was the most people I have ever seen at EC so early in the season, I couldn't believe all the boats! Luckily, the power squadron hasn't show up quite yet[sly]
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