07-22-2003, 06:53 PM
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Flaming Gorge Report[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Showed up to Flaming Gorge on a Monday. Ended up camping in Lucerne Valley, which isn’t too bad of a place to camp except there really isn’t much shade. Make sure to get a campsite that has a few trees just to the west of the campsite and that will provide shade in the afternoons. We just chose to stay on the water till dinner-time which was just fine with me. We stayed in campsite A22 and it was perfect for out needs.[/size][/font]
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[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]We started fishing early on Tuesday and started out on Antelope Flats trolling a spoon off of lead-core and pulling dodgers and squids on the downrigger. Ended up catching quite a few stocker sized rainbows on the leadcore, but nothing on the dodgers/squids. I saw a guy catch three macs and he was trolling really slow. So I busted out the binoculars to see what he was using. He had on pop gear and nightcrawler. So I basically rigged the same thing on my leadcore and dropped the speed to barely moving and caught a 5 lb. Mac. Didn’t catch anything after that, but I started to notice that most of the fish were holding really tight to the structure in 80 – 90’ of water. It didn’t seem to matter where you were, if water hit land in 80’ of water, fish were holding there. [/font][/size]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The next couple of days I wore my ass out running the downrigger to keep the ball and lures just dragging on the ground in 80’ to 100’ of water. Caught one mac on a dodger and a squid, but then nothing. I was pretty frustrated since I spent three days trolling and hadn’t caught much. A few Kokanee here and there, but not really anything to get excited about.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]I then had the crazy idea to see if I could sit on top of the fish and drop lures on them. I tried a slab and didn’t get anything to bite, but I really didn’t try to hard. I tried a tube or two, but couldn’t get anything to bite. In fact I noticed on the sonar that the tube was scaring them away. I went back to trolling the rest of day without much luck.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The next afternoon, Friday by this time, I decide to heck with trolling, I’m going to jig spoons because fish cannot resist jigged spoons. LOL. After about 20 minutes of jigging a big slab (2 oz Glow) I caught a mac. Woohooo! After I caught a few more smaller sized fish, it was getting late so we decided to get one more fish and then head in for supper. After a few more pulls of the rod, whammo a big one hit. I pulled the bow mount up and just let the boat drift. I basically was just hanging on to the rod waiting for the fish to tire. It finally started to tire and I was able to land the biggest freshwater fish of my life. I was a 23 lb mac. I was shaking from excitement and my chocolate lab didn’t know what to make of fish almost as big as her! My girlfriend got the fish in the net, but couldn’t get the net in the boat. We laughed and I felt relived to have made a milestone of the trip.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The rest of the trip (10 days total on the water) I targeted these fish hanging on the structure and had great luck. Landing an 11 pounder and two 28 lb macs later that trip as well. I will have to admit that the 28 lbers were foul hooked, so probably wouldn’t count in a tourney. One was hooked in the stomach and one was hooked in the tail. The one hooked in the tail fought like a 50 lber and I thought I had a new record fish.[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]A couple observations regarding the slabbing of the lake trout: They are attracted to the slabbing, but won’t always bite. Sometimes I think the slab is moving faster than they can strike and thus they get foul hooked. If I slowed down the jigging motion or used a rounder slab which falls slower, I chased them away. Don’t let them really see the lure or they get spooked. I also used my big motor to move around on the structure to find the pockets of fish. No point slabbing if there aren’t fish there to hook. Also, the fish on the mediocre structure are not as active and those on main points and humps.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]P.S. All fish were released[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Showed up to Flaming Gorge on a Monday. Ended up camping in Lucerne Valley, which isn’t too bad of a place to camp except there really isn’t much shade. Make sure to get a campsite that has a few trees just to the west of the campsite and that will provide shade in the afternoons. We just chose to stay on the water till dinner-time which was just fine with me. We stayed in campsite A22 and it was perfect for out needs.[/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/size]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"]We started fishing early on Tuesday and started out on Antelope Flats trolling a spoon off of lead-core and pulling dodgers and squids on the downrigger. Ended up catching quite a few stocker sized rainbows on the leadcore, but nothing on the dodgers/squids. I saw a guy catch three macs and he was trolling really slow. So I busted out the binoculars to see what he was using. He had on pop gear and nightcrawler. So I basically rigged the same thing on my leadcore and dropped the speed to barely moving and caught a 5 lb. Mac. Didn’t catch anything after that, but I started to notice that most of the fish were holding really tight to the structure in 80 – 90’ of water. It didn’t seem to matter where you were, if water hit land in 80’ of water, fish were holding there. [/font][/size]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The next couple of days I wore my ass out running the downrigger to keep the ball and lures just dragging on the ground in 80’ to 100’ of water. Caught one mac on a dodger and a squid, but then nothing. I was pretty frustrated since I spent three days trolling and hadn’t caught much. A few Kokanee here and there, but not really anything to get excited about.[/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/size]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]I then had the crazy idea to see if I could sit on top of the fish and drop lures on them. I tried a slab and didn’t get anything to bite, but I really didn’t try to hard. I tried a tube or two, but couldn’t get anything to bite. In fact I noticed on the sonar that the tube was scaring them away. I went back to trolling the rest of day without much luck.[/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/size]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The next afternoon, Friday by this time, I decide to heck with trolling, I’m going to jig spoons because fish cannot resist jigged spoons. LOL. After about 20 minutes of jigging a big slab (2 oz Glow) I caught a mac. Woohooo! After I caught a few more smaller sized fish, it was getting late so we decided to get one more fish and then head in for supper. After a few more pulls of the rod, whammo a big one hit. I pulled the bow mount up and just let the boat drift. I basically was just hanging on to the rod waiting for the fish to tire. It finally started to tire and I was able to land the biggest freshwater fish of my life. I was a 23 lb mac. I was shaking from excitement and my chocolate lab didn’t know what to make of fish almost as big as her! My girlfriend got the fish in the net, but couldn’t get the net in the boat. We laughed and I felt relived to have made a milestone of the trip.[/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/size]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The rest of the trip (10 days total on the water) I targeted these fish hanging on the structure and had great luck. Landing an 11 pounder and two 28 lb macs later that trip as well. I will have to admit that the 28 lbers were foul hooked, so probably wouldn’t count in a tourney. One was hooked in the stomach and one was hooked in the tail. The one hooked in the tail fought like a 50 lber and I thought I had a new record fish.[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]A couple observations regarding the slabbing of the lake trout: They are attracted to the slabbing, but won’t always bite. Sometimes I think the slab is moving faster than they can strike and thus they get foul hooked. If I slowed down the jigging motion or used a rounder slab which falls slower, I chased them away. Don’t let them really see the lure or they get spooked. I also used my big motor to move around on the structure to find the pockets of fish. No point slabbing if there aren’t fish there to hook. Also, the fish on the mediocre structure are not as active and those on main points and humps.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]P.S. All fish were released[/size][/font]
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