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Earlier this month (May) I'd been doing good trolling for the rainbows at East Canyon - good fighting fish, and fun to catch or try to catch....... Today a buddy and I headed to Rockport to give that a go with my bigger boat, so we could use downriggers and planers.....Both worked well.... nothing doing first hour, 0800 to 0900, but then we started getting some hits....seeing alot of fish deeper, like 20 to 30', we set downriggers to 25'....but no takers at that depth......everything we caught, or missed on a good hit, was shallow, 11 to 17', and many times those fish didn't even show up on the screen.....they all jumped out airborne, trying to shake the hook.....and 4 or 5 did, but we put some nice ones on ice....AND THIS IS my main thought....why are these rainbows so much better looking than those at EC? None of these had tail deformaties, or dorsal or pec fins clipped like at EC.....they all looked like natural fish......different hatchery? Natural reproduction? ...... Anybody know? Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised.......Guluk....
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Nice job. Only thing I can think is because of the Anchor worm at EC, maybe it harms the fish more than we know.
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The last time I fished East Canyon 5/20. We were stopped by a DWR employee leaving the water, he wanted to measure our fish and ask a couple questions. He held up two fish a smaller maybe 13" rainbow that had been planted in the lake when he was smaller (not left in the hatchery to grow up) and a larger rainbow maybe 16" that had his tail chewed up and his nose beat up by the hatchery walls ( they grew him longer in the hatchery) Then he asked which type of fish we preferred the pretty smaller fish or the hatchery raised larger fish?
I am guessing they planted some larger fish this spring they raised longer in the hatchery so they could do this survey. Earlier in the year we were just catching the smaller class fish that did not show the hatchery battle scars.
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[quote lifeshort]The last time I fished East Canyon 5/20. We were stopped by a DWR employee leaving the water, he wanted to measure our fish and ask a couple questions. He held up two fish a smaller maybe 13" rainbow that had been planted in the lake when he was smaller (not left in the hatchery to grow up) and a larger rainbow maybe 16" that had his tail chewed up and his nose beat up by the hatchery walls ( they grew him longer in the hatchery) Then he asked which type of fish we preferred the pretty smaller fish or the hatchery raised larger fish?
I am guessing they planted some larger fish this spring they raised longer in the hatchery so they could do this survey. Earlier in the year we were just catching the smaller class fish that did not show the hatchery battle scars.[/quote]
I hadn't ever thought of it that way but seems to make sense.
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We put 80,000 8+ inch rainbow into Rockport in October that were in excellent shape and I think these are the ones that you are now catching.
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All those we did net, and some released without netting, were 13 to 15"..... would they have grown that much just since October?.....Anyhow, they were nice fish, and you all did a good job....Guluk....
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If conditions and temperatures are right they can grow over an inch a month. In the winter they wouldn't grow a lot but late fall and this spring they would take off.
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Tks Festus .... good info, and could bode well for late Fall and maybe ice fishing...
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