Flaming Gorge 6-27

[thatchergreg]

Launched at Buckboard Saturday morning, water temp was 66 degrees.
The parking lot was full and most of the boats were in a pack trolling for Kokanee on the East side of Big Bend. My brother dropped the downriggers with orange and pink squids while I put out two longline rods with crankbaits, An hour later I had caught two 16" rainbows on a fire tiger orange ShadRap. With no Kokanee in the boat and very few on the sonar we decided to reel in and jig for some Lakers in the river channel. The Lakers were scattered and didn't seem interested in our tube jigs so we moved to the shoreline and threw crankbaits,spinners, and spoons for Rainbows. My brother lost a nice rainbow at the boat and I caught two 'bows between 19 and 20 inches on a stoplight pattern Wallydiver. The 19 incher in the photo went in the livewell, the others went back to die another day.

[wiperhunter2]

Sounds like a tough day for the kokes but at least the bows wanted to play. Were you tipping your tube jigs with any bait?

[thatchergreg]

No, we were using 4.5" Berkley Power Tubes.
I made my first trip to the gorge this May and the lakers were eating everything I put on a jig head, salted tubes, Mogambo twister tails, and Berkley Power Craws. The surprise was how good the Mogambo's looked when jigged vertically, the big tail flutters and twists with very little movement.

[wiperhunter2]

No, we were using 4.5" Berkley Power Tubes.
I made my first trip to the gorge this May and the lakers were eating everything I put on a jig head, salted tubes, Mogambo twister tails, and Berkley Power Craws. The surprise was how good the Mogambo's looked when jigged vertically, the big tail flutters and twists with very little movement.

Were you after big macks or pups? For pups it helps to sweeten the jigs with sucker meat or similar bait to be most effective this time of the year but the method you were using for the biggest macks is a best one, IMO.

[thatchergreg]

Since it was my first attempt for lakers I was open to anything that bites. Three hours of jigging netted 15 pups around 20 inches.