07-26-2021, 02:19 AM
My daughter signed us up for a trip to Scofield State park for the 24th. Just before leaving I checked the web for warnings on the algae. The sites all said don't go boating, swimming, waterskiing or any other water sports at Scofield. Fishing was OK as long as you cleaned the fish well and washed your hands after. So we left the boat home and took down the off roading toys. On Wednesday evening the lake started to boil with fish so we wandered down the bank to a rocky area with some of the grandkids and started catching the fish. I tried flies for a while but couldn't tempt them with so many real bugs on the water. I had several of my grandkids younger cousins along with us who had never caught a fish so I hooked them up with worms. They all ended up catching fish and wanted to go every day we were there. We caught rainbows, tiger trout, and cutts. The biggest ones were in the slot at 16-17 inches but the kids were good about releasing them. My oldest grand daughter hooked into a real nice tiger but tried to lift it out of the water too soon and broke her line. By the end of the trip the kids were tying their own knots and baiting their own hooks. Some of their knots were catch and release knots due to how many knots came off with fish.
The algae bloom was bad and the water looked quite bad. The thing that made me shake my head was how many people still took boats out, went wakeboarding, jet skiing and water skiing even though there were plenty of signs around saying not to. One guy jumped into the lake and started swimming until I mentioned that there was a health advisory in effect. Some were also letting toddlers play in the water. No officials came and asked people to stop boating nor was there warning markers at the boat ramp. The lake was about half full and with the warm temps the algae is probably going to get worse.
The algae bloom was bad and the water looked quite bad. The thing that made me shake my head was how many people still took boats out, went wakeboarding, jet skiing and water skiing even though there were plenty of signs around saying not to. One guy jumped into the lake and started swimming until I mentioned that there was a health advisory in effect. Some were also letting toddlers play in the water. No officials came and asked people to stop boating nor was there warning markers at the boat ramp. The lake was about half full and with the warm temps the algae is probably going to get worse.