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Went to otter creek over the weekend with my dad and 3 of my boys. Maybe we jinxed ourselves by getting pulled over by UHP on the way for speeding, cause the rest of the day was slow.... anyway we hit the lake about 745 and headed towards the dam area. We were in about 37 fow and temp was 54 degrees. We had every line set up with a little different like usual to try and find what the fish are going for. I also had one pole set up with Jakes, spoons, flies, meps, and any other thing I could think to throw at them. I finally got a hit on something I don’t know the name of around 9but lost it. But that was it. Nothing was working. So we decided to head to the north part of the lake. After about 25 minutes my 11 year finally hooked one but he likes to make the fight better by using a 5’ Ultra light rod so since he can’t control it as well he chased it around the boat and I could ]not get my lines in fast enough so he caught my lines and the a nice little 19" rainbow, which would be our only fish. We stayed there til around 1045 and then down the east side to the south and started marking fish so we tried that area but as I give it away already we didn’t catch anything.
The lake was crystal clear and ice smooth almost all day. The water got up 56 degrees by the time we left. We talked to one guy at fish cleaning station that was cleaning 6 I believe and he said they caught about 35. He was trolling in 18 fow and just kept going up and back catching 4-5 fish each pass. My dads boat isn’t spent up for trolling unfortunately though someone said he could drag something but he refuses to do that. So days like today when trolling is probably the better way it’s bad for us. This was the worst day we’ve had on otter creek. It’s the first time we haven’t limited out the I can remember. Oh well the kids were pretty good that’s a plus. And it’s always better than pulling weeds.
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I was there all weekend and was fishing from shore in the state park and between two of us we caught 20 fish all weekend. Fishing was slow. The weird thing was we caught rainbows that were spawning or attempting to spawn. I have never seen this happen this time of the year. We were using a worm and a marsh mellow to catch our fish. Nothing big, but they were good fighting fish. Didn't see a lot of people catching many fish from shore. Could be the storms that rolled through?
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Planning to try otter creek for the first time tomorrow. Have a boat and can troll. Any recommendations? How deep are the fish? How deep of water should we fish in? Do we use pop gear? Lure recommendations? location suggestions? Any help is appreciated.
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The guy I talked to that caught 35-40 fish was on the east side about half way up the lake.he said he was in about 20 fow using lead line to get it in on the bottom and he was using pop gear but I don’t know what kind of lure he was using. He said he would run north catch 4-5 turn back south and catch 4-5 more and turn back north and keep repeating. Hope this info helps.
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Thurs. 24th we were there. We caught I would guess about 15 fish each. There were two of us. We were fishing about 15' down. He only had one down rigger so I was shooting blind with my lines.
Best for us was about 2/3 of the way up the lake and about dead center side to side.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks mooseman75. That gives us a good starting point.
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Thanks Pac man. Sounds consistent with what mooseman75 is saying. What are some good lures to try? Is there anywhere besides the state park to launch a 20 ft boat?
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As far as I know that is the only place launch a boat. When I was leaving which my dads boat is a 19’, someone was launching a 24’ pontoon so you should be fine. The worst part about otter creek is docking for any amount of time, you basically has to beach it as far as I know.
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this morning we trolled around the eagle nest area and caught 2. We were in about 20-25 ft of water and trying to get close to the bottom using leaded line. Both fish were caught on a rooster tail spinner behind pop gear. Tried a craw dad plastic, other spinners, crocodile but they didn't work. Most people were anchored fishing with cheese or dough. Most at eagles nest. Talked to a guy who was fishing various color floating dough up by Sr point. He said they had caught about 0 between him, his wife and young son. I'm pretty sure they fished the same 3 hrs we did. Then the rains came.
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Sorry it wasn’t more productive but you did do better than we did. I wished I would’ve thought to ask the guy what lures he used so I could’ve been more helpful to you. But thanks for letting me know how you did. I was actually thinking about it earlier
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Sorry about not getting back to you before you were to go.
I have a hard time getting myself to look at emails. There are hundreds if not thousands wanting to be looked at in this thing. Most call me old fashioned but I don't even have a cell phone, and the texting stuff is absurd to me. We went from the typewriter to the phone then back to the hand held typewriter. Makes no sense to me.
I feel better now that the rant is over!!!!
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