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Not in yet nobody knows when. With good weather there will be a ton of people but fishing should be good. Probably close to a thousand fish in the five pound range or bigger caught there this year. Just looked up the plantings, Salmon Falls reservoir with about 1/5th the water as Walcott to Eagle Rock had 152,000 catchable trout planted in it last year plus 575,000 3-6 fingerlings and 77,000 steelhead. Minidoka Dam which produces growth rates of over 3 pounds per year and produces over 100 times the trophy fish had a total planting of 22,000 fish. Also the BLM paid for all the fish that were put in Minidoka and the fish and game paid the whole bill for Salmon dam. I landed Seven pound 26" fish two days in a row from my float tube thur and Friday. Trolling early last week the two of us had about 50 hook ups a couple of days. Can't imagine that type of fishing continuing for very long. The Fri Sat storms and 35 mph winds Monday really riled the water and fishing was very slow early this week. It is a bunch of crap putting that kind of fish into Salmon dam where I have yet to land a 5 pound fish. So far this year there has been 25 times the fish landed in Minidoka than Salmon Falls. We caught five fish last year at Gifford Springs which had tags and were from the 2014 plantings. None at the dam. Folks nearly all these 4-6 pound fish we are catching are from that planting. Going in at an average of 9-10 inches in September 14 in a year and a half they are in the 5 pound range. There is a huge body of water for these fish to hang around in. The dam is full all the time now and folks there is 5 miles of it that a boat is not allowed in. Gifford Springs is about 10 miles upriver from where these fish were planted. For heck sakes we need to plant 3 times the fish we are now putting in. A friend on a digital scale weighted a 21 inch fish that weighed seven pounds. It was 16" around the girth.
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Thanks for the heads up on the docks Blacktop.
Thanks even more for your informed insight on the fishing and stockings at Walcott. You make some valid arguments that I was not aware of.
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Fishing has slowed probably getting caught out but I stayed with it and caught a 5,6,7 and a nine pounder today on my fly rod. Released them all.
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The biomass at Walcott is amazing it's open water clear to American falls dam, we could never fish it out. Miles are closed to watercraft so it gives some refuge. You can go one day and think your a stick and the next time draw a big goose egg, but that's fishing.
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It does get fished out where it is unproductive. Your statement would be challenged by all of the local fisherman who are the pro's. As my home water only one in twenty five trips will I not catch fish over the last 30 years. My problem is the gargantuan fish we are catching now are off of three years of 40,000 6+ plantings which were cut to 22000 last year hence less carryover for next year. It is essentially a lake now from Eagle Rock where the high water mark in the winter is just a foot low, to the Dam. Above there a quarter mile you can easily wade across it in the winter. There is a ten foot vertical drop from Eagle rock to Rattel Snake Island. Already the suburb ecosystem has just been enhanced expodentially. Above there it is a different ecosystem six months out of the year. The pressure this year starting April !st was twenty times the normal when usually there is very little visability as it is just filled for a week in the past. Over the past twenty years no more than one or two boats April 1st this year 60. The fall plantings which commenced in 2012 have been a godsend. Anything you think you know about this lake has been drasticically changed this year. It has probably received 5 times the pressure of all the other lakes in region four combined. It could sustain the growth rate with 60000 fish or more. Having been on the river every inch from the Minidoka Dam to American Falls much of the non boating water is much more shallow and is not equal to the fishing holding waters from the dam to bird island. The channel from Smith Springs to Massacre Rocks boat landing is only about 25' deep.
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Bring back the kamaloops! Been fishing there since the sixties. Triploids suck. Ice fishing this year was the worst I can ever remember, maybe it's the water level, or the Pelicans? Most of the fish tags are found on the rookery. Sturgeon don't belong there.
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The 15 five pound+ fish I caught on my fly rod this past week were all Kamloops strain. None are pure but the kamloop strain genetics are very dominant in these fish. Correction one was a hybrid. I have fished it for 50 years and have seen weeks where I caught double that many 5s but these fish are substantially bigger as I have caught 5 seven pound and bigger fish this week and seen four more caught that size. The Bureau of Reclamation who I understand currently pay for the fish put in Walcott need to be careful in how the utilize the spill gates not opening single gates to much as these new gates pull from a deeper depth and late in the summer too many fish are lost downriver where they fall prey to the pelicans. Currently on the lake below Bird Island the pelicans get almost no trout with the late fall plantings.
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There are still no docks at Walcott and there is a bass tournament tomorrow.
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Fishing has been very slow at west end of the lake after being phenomenal the week before. Fishing was excellent off of 3 mile point on the north Fri mid day and Sat afternoon after the horrendous east wind quit around noon. Landed 4 over 5 Fri by the dam but boats really struggling there all week
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] I would like to hit it this weekend but was hoping that the new docks where in. Anyone been there lately?