bear lake mac

[setthehook]

[fishin]12 pound mac
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[RDRRM8E]

Did you catch it in the mouth or snag it?
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[setthehook]

this one was actually caught legally! unlike everyone else around me who was trying to snag every mac they saw. this one slammed my rattle trap hooked it right in the roof of its mouth not it the head! if you know what your doing and you get your lure in the right spot at the right time you can get defensive strikes! in other words piss a big mac off your bound to get eaten! this was at the peak of the mac run. there had to be 15 or more people on the rocks under the light trying to snag! but this one was taken legally!
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[muskyhunter]

Looks like a lot of blood for a top of the mouth hook? JMO!
RDRR if you new what you were doing mabey you could catch a fish like that!!![:p]
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[Got_Bait]

I like to cut through all of the gill arches to bleed them out when I keep a fish to eat. It makes a big difference. I'm sure other people know about this technique as well.

Nevertheless, I don't like to go do the night deal at the state marina because I don't like to see all those fish that refuse to bite my lures.
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[AverysAdventure]

Bleeding your fish will always produce a better fillet!!
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[RDRRM8E]

[quote muskyhunter]Looks like a lot of blood for a top of the mouth hook? JMO!
RDRR if you new what you were doing mabey you could catch a fish like that!!![:p][/quote]

Maybe one of these days...
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[AFDan52]

Rich, you might need to restock your supply of Cigars if your going to try that. LMAO[:p]
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[Urfishesdaddy]

How do you bleed your fish? I would like to learn that. How does that make for a better fillet? Do you do that with all fish or just Macs?

Thanks in advance for you help.
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[Got_Bait]

Bleeding your fish is really important too if you want to keep the eggs to fish with, in steelhead and salmon for example. but I do it with every fish I keep. Avery's right, it always does produce a better fillet.

I do it just like I described in my previous post: cut through all the gill arches. The sooner you can do it the better - preferably immediately after unhooking it, before you even bonk it on the head. There is also a major artery down there that you can cut that works well too. It's a little hard to describe where it is, so the gill arches work fine. It especially helps if you hang the fish upside down as it bleeds and continually break loose the blood clots that form, so that it can bleed out completely.

Then, I get out the remaining blood in the tail section by jabbing a sharp knife through the lateral line @ the wrist of the tail (just below where your fillet would end), and hanging them tail down in a tree. This artery might be tough to hit sometimes, but you will know when you hit it because there should be a significant amount of blood (unless you were lucky enough to completely drain it all out from the gills).

PM me if you have any more questions so we don't hijack the thread.
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[setthehook]

say what you want i know how i hooked that fish so do all the other people lined up tryin to snag! as for the blood, just got excited and refused the net and when i lifted the fish out of the water i guess i was a little anxious to land it and ripped its gill out on one side.
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[LordoftheFlies]

Don't worry about it setthehook. Some of these knot-heads watch way too much CSI and think they can solve a crime from a photo.[crazy]

Nice fish dude and thanks for sharing it.
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[BearLakeFishGuy]

Just for the record, there have not been many fishermen during the lake trout run this year. The reason? Pretty poor weather with wind. There have been a few nights with several cars loads of people, but the anglers are being closely watched by the UDWR conservation officers and there have been very few citations issued this season for snagging. People are policing themselves and those anglers who attempt to snag fish are not being tolerated.
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[setthehook]

interesting i guess the udwr took the night off when i was there! there where at least 10 to 15 people right under the light. and every last one of them was trying to snag! There had to be 4 or 5 other cars that pulled up and left after seeing the the heard of snanglers, some waited for others to leave... when each fishermen tries to set the hook every 20 seconds or so, and you continually hear "theirs one try and get it in the head!" Its pretty obvious what method they where trying to use!!!!! its pretty cool to see the grey monster ghosts flash by though,It sure gets you going! There are some monsters in there!!!!!!
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[Got_Bait]

Hey I hope I didn't come off sounding like one of those turkeys that's always questioning or complaining on every nice catch that gets posted. You seem to understand what's going on over there so. . . ya. Nice catch, hopefully all those jerkers learned something from you.

Ya ur right, it does really get you going. I just can't figure out how to get them to bite. Is it the ones in close that you can see that bite, or is it out further where you can't see them?

Its really cool to see all those fish, but it's so dang frustrating that they rarely if ever bite. Then when I roll home at 3 in the morning and have to be to work at 7, I really have to question my intelligence.

I've had way better luck from first light til about 11 in the morning this time of year. Then the fish aren't right there staring at your toenails while you are trying to trick them.
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[catfish-logic]

Are macs good eating? I heard the little ones are but the bigguns' are not as tasty, too greasy I guess, well?
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[Weekend_Warrior]

Most fish are fine smoked.
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