11-06-2019, 02:34 AM
After seeing all the reports of the good fishing I decided to make the run up and see if I could get a few. Last time I fished it was over 10 years ago when we visited relatives in Montana for Christmas. Ran up yesterday afternoon and grabbed a hotel in Ashton so that I wouldn’t have to get up so early. Got to the lake about 6:40 and drove into the state park area to check out things, 2 groups of people were setting up not far from shore to the left of the ramp, as this was not my intended area I wanted to fish I didn’t stay long and headed over to the south side by the cliffs. 1 other vehicle was there with 2 guys getting ready to head out. After chatting a bit I headed out to about 8’ of water and a spot that had a fair number of holes and some sign that fish had been landed in that area. Picked a few holes and used the sugar to clean them up and ready for a line. Set 2 rods in jaw jackers and had 1 for me to jig with. Started with white paddle bugs and NVC’s on all the rods, the two in the JJ’s were tipped with wax worms and I put a piece of a crawler on the rod I was going to jig with. It didn’t take long and the jig rod was getting taps but I couldn’t hook them until I had about 7 bites and landed #1. About that time the JJ’s started going off and it was a circus show I’m sure with me running from rod to rod, even landed a few lol. Slowed down around 9:30 but was still get a hit here and there until I left at 1:30 or so. Ended up landing 8 cutts and 1 brookie that came home for dinner and lots of missed hits, ice was 5-6.5” thick in the area I was at, the lake was doing some talking and shaking as the pressure cracks did their thing. Big thanks to Skunked Again (Jeff) for the info on the Jaw Jackers, once I got used to setting them (yes I had a lot of practice today) they got simple to use. Weather was great, started out at 22 and when I left was in the mid 40’s
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