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Took the family camping on Lake mead on Thursday and came home Saturday afternoon. The Callville boat ramp has been revamped some and launching was a breeze. Headed out to middle point island to set up camp and started fishing around dusk. I was just casting off the back of the boat and the stripers were hitting the bait before it could get to the bottom. The only bummer was they were all kinda small. In the 1 to 11/2 pound range. I kept about 15 mainly because they had swallowed the bait and would not have lived even if I released them. We even stopped by Sandy beach and was catching them right off the boat in the middle of the day. Same problem was they were small. But they still make great fish tacos. So on Friday night we stayed in a nice little cove not too far from the callville campgrounds and I caught a pretty good sized turtle on squid. Actually I caught two of them but took a picture of the larger one. I have caught turtles in the past but usually they were in the overton area. These can be pretty mean little creatures but this one stayed nice and still while I removed the hook very carefully. Usually we just cut the line and turn them loose but this one was not hissing or trying to bite. The turtle in the photo is about 16 inches in diameter. I put my size 12 foot in the picture for some scale.
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That's pretty wicked. Hadn't heard of anyone actually catching a turtle. I have been diving in Mead quite a few times and have seen them, but never caught one. Nice catch on the stripers also. I have not been able to really find them in those types of numbers. I am going to have to get out one evening before I split from Vegas.
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Nice turtle! I have never caught one. Not sure I ever want to. [:p] Looks like you all had a great time on the lake!
BaySport
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I used to fish from shore in the vegas wash area after they removed the docks (and before it was dry) and i have pulled in quite a few turtles like that. I stopped going out there cause i would get at least two turtles every time I went out. I felt too bad and had to find a new spot. ONe day, a couple of Japanese dudes were walking by when I landed one, and they were very excited when i tossed it in their ice chest. (it swallowed the hook and was in bad shape.)
As far as stripers being small....Get used to it. There are just too many small fish in the lake to have a good population of 5-15lbers. Too many small fish eating up all the shad.
Do your part!!!! Kill all the small stripers you catch! They didnt make the limit on stripers under 20" "Unlimited" for no reason. Until we can thin out the population a bit, we will continue to have a burgeoning number of 1 lbers.
But hey! Thats still a good looking ice-chest!
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Do your part!!!! Kill all the small stripers you catch!
Amen to that brother! I will take an oath right now to swear to kill as many small stripers as I can catch! Count me in!
BaySport
PS...They make great fish tacos.
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