09-09-2004, 02:08 PM
I fished the Bear on Sat. from 8:00am to about 11:30. It was cold and several squalls of rain moved through so it was wet and breezy. I started by trolling around the rockpile using the GPS to avoid getting hung up on all the crap on the top of the pile. I was using a handline set up dragging a 1.75lb sinker attached to a wire shank about 6 feet long that had several clevises on it. To the clevises I attached two leads, one with a flatfish the other a rapala. The first lure was run about 4 feet back and 18" above the sinker and the second about 30 feet back and 6 feet above the sinker. The sinker drags on the bottom. With this set up you can very effectively tell what type of bottom you are fishing over. I fished from 30 feet out to 70 feet and caught nothing in about two hours of trolling. I switched lures and varied my speed and still...notta! I then went to a downrigger starting at 70 feet and trolled at 10' intervals out to 100'. I finally got into some lake trout at 100'. In fact I caught 4 fish (3 pups and 1 nice one). I kept the biggest fish since it was spent after fighting it for 25 minutes. It ended up being 13.2lbs and 34.5" long. All fish were caught on a U-20 flatfish fished right next to the bottom and about 50' behing the cannonball. I caught all four fish in the last hour of fishing from about 10:30-11:30am. "Crestliner" was at the marina that morning and he took a digital pic of the fish. When I get the photo from him I'll post it to this report.
If you're headed up to the Bear this weekend I'd try fishing deep. The water is still very stratified and the thermocline goes from about 45' out to about 80'. The lakers should be in the colder water below 80'. I did not try jigging so I can't give you an accurate report there. The macs will pre-stage for the spawn in Sept. and some good fishing can be had. Just keep searching for the fish until you find them. I used a GPS to keep running over the same spot I caught my first fish at and I would bet all 4 fish that I caught came from an area about 50' in diameter!
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If you're headed up to the Bear this weekend I'd try fishing deep. The water is still very stratified and the thermocline goes from about 45' out to about 80'. The lakers should be in the colder water below 80'. I did not try jigging so I can't give you an accurate report there. The macs will pre-stage for the spawn in Sept. and some good fishing can be had. Just keep searching for the fish until you find them. I used a GPS to keep running over the same spot I caught my first fish at and I would bet all 4 fish that I caught came from an area about 50' in diameter!
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