Echo - Slow and Stocked

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Echo – 9 Nov: Went to Echo to try for some trout. I fished 12:00-5:00pm. There were 5 boat trailers on the dock. I spoke with one local in a Tracker that was after Walleye, but was unsuccessful. Saw several boats trolling but I didn’t see much action.

I headed South. The air temp was 46 F and water temp was 46 F at noon. The water seemed much clearer than the last time I was there. It was a nice sunny day. Wind was 0-7 mph. About 1:00pm I picked up a couple rainbows on pop-gear and worm (15” and 17” long). I caught both within 20 minutes and then I could not get more hits trolling the rest of the day. Marked many fish on the finder. The majority were at 30-40 FOW and were holding between 15-25’ down. The majority of those were coming in and out of the 15’ level. I believe I might have been able to see a line of possible zoo-plankton at that level. Perhaps they were slurping it all up and not caring about chasing things (who knows). I tried may other things such as spoons and flat-fish and spinners tipped with worm. I kept dragging the mini-pop gear as my default and changing up on the second rod. I also tried several other depts. Nada.

I saw several sets of bank fisherman and did not see any action from them.
I saw a lot of fish on the finder. I know there were fish where I was placing my offerings.

Today a friend told me DWR had planted Rainbows 4 days earlier. I checked their web site and sure enough they planted nearly 1,700 at the 10.5” length. This may explain why I saw so many fish, and why they are not chasing lures. This was surprising since they did not plant this time of year in 2018 or 2017. Perhaps they are trying to create some fun for the ice fisherman.

This is my first year to fish Echo. If anyone else on this site is an active Echo trout fisherman, please PM me so we can compare notes in the future. Thx.
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[dubob]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 3]My last 2 trips to Echo were in late September/Early October before the courtesy docks were removed. Both trips we boated well over 30 fish and lost a few more. It was on fire then and a recent report (Nov) from a friend of mine said the same thing. I fished Rockport last week using the same tackle I used on Echo and we boated 37 trout and kept 8 between 14 and 17.5 inches.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 3]I know pop gear and a worm on lead core line is a very old traditional way to fish for trout in Utah. But I haven't used that in about 20 years and don't ever have any problems catching all the trout I can handle. Here is a picture of one of the hot lure set-ups I used at both Echo and Rockport.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 3]I fished it 50 feet behind the boat and at a depth of 5 to 10 feet down off downriggers. The second best lure was an Apex size A2 (1 1/2") in pink haze u.v.[/size][/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 3]Both were tipped with Pautzke yellow shoepeg corn/Gulp pink maggots/Gulp yellow crappie nibbles.
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[sliverslinger]

Thanks for the advice!
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[dubob]

[quote sliverslinger]Thanks for the advice![/quote][font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000][size 3]You're welcome. Now, if it just works for you . . . . . [][/size][/#800000][/font]
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