Joe's Valley Res.

[Envenomation09]

Anybody fish it recently? Heard the ice is melting?
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[gofish435]

The ice is gone. I heard from a DWR guy that a fly fisherman using a sinking line and a streamer caught nine splake in an hour.

[url "http://www.ewcd.org/cameras/joes-valley-reservoir/"]www.ewcd.org/cameras/joes-valley-reservoir/[/url]
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[Lonnie]

If you look on the web cam the lake looks ice free
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[ddaley]

Ice is gone. Was up there on February 14th and the edges were away enough that I could toss some jigs. Ended up with one splake landed on a white tube and another right at the shore before he let himself go.

I have a buddy that fished it on the 21st? of February roughly. Completely ice free and caught quite a few on fly tackle, not positive what he was tossing though.
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[spencerD]

I was that angler. Let the DWR know the report, glad to see they're passing it along.

Fishing right off the dam arm is money with all the rocks - the structure there is perfect for fish to hide in. I was throwing sinking line on a 5wt fly rod with #4 white zonkers.

One take was a massive slam into the fly, but the rest were more subtle and soft. The fish are still waking up I guess.
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[gofish435]

Thanks for the report. Sounds like a good time. Maybe I'll have to give Joes Valley another chance. I haven't fished it since the chubs took over.

I always e-mail Brent Stettler, the DWR information guy in our region, with a report whenever I go and he is real good to pass information along.
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[cje04]

Thanks for the report. What size are the fish there? I've been waiting for this lake to ice off.
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[gofish435]

I'm sorry but you'll have to ask SpencerD about the size.[]
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[spencerD]

The chubs aren't a problem anymore in Joes Valley. At least, they haven't been for me.

Ever since the DWR introduced tiger muskie into Joes, the fishery has drastically improved. I wish they'd do the same to Scofield, it's getting bad there.

Definitely wroth a shot!

As for size - most of the splake are between 15-17 inches. They take forever to grow. The biggest splake I've personally seen was a 12 pounder outta there. I was doing a mount of a tiger trout at a taxedermist's shop (he's a buddy of mine) and he brought in the splake. Amazing looking fish. The big ones are in there.

Last year, I caught some really nice 3-4 pound tigers out of Joes at ice off, and some good sized cutts as well. The bigger ones are in there, you just gotta walk a lot of shoreline to find where they're holed up.
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