10-02-2006, 08:54 PM
So, armed with advice from TD and FuzzyFisher and a few others, my dad and I headed up to Scofield Saturday morning. When we arrived at about 7:00 the temperature was in the low 20s and the dock was frosty--careful.
Anyway, fishing started out pretty steady for the first hour and 1/2 or so. Boated a couple, sat and warmed up hands, got a few bites, lost a couple at the boat, lost a couple not so near the boat.
I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of #7 Rapala Floating Minnow and a 78sp Lucky Craft Pointer both in the shiner pattern. Truth is, I didn't do a great job of comparing them in that the fishing really slowed down for us after the first little while. Caught the first fish, a smallish 10 inch rainbow with the Rapala. Threw the Pointer for a little while and got one bite--big strike--but did not hook up. Then switched to a Power Smelt without any weight. I had stored the smelt in my tackbox and it had gotten bent--it actually worked really well and the bend gave it some nice action as I used it as kind of a jerkbait. I had good success with this setup and caught the biggest fish of the day, a 20 incher--and fat. It was "extra" fun in that after the small trout I switched to my ultralight rod and 4 lb test and he fought like crazy. Maybe you all can help out with I.D. on this fish. It looked like a Cutthroat to me and definitly had cutthroat markins under the jaw, but also had quite a lot of color on the gill plates and sides (though they don't show up as much in this picture). I was wondering if Scofield has hybrids (cutbows). Anyway...
We hooked up a few more times, all pretty small, but then, later in the afternoon, we caught a 17 incher--maybe the prettyist trout I have seen. Beautiful markings (again, had lots of spots, rainbow markings, but also definite cutthroat markings under the jaw). Really pretty back--green and gold in the sun (see pics). Caught that one on a Pointer.
Had a little success with the white tubes and some small spoons. They didn't take dead minnows at all.
All in all the day was pretty slow, but the fish that we did catch were very nice, all were released (hopefully to bite another day). We did notice quite a few dead fish belly up on the bottom in the shallows, no idea why. Thanks for all the help getting ready for the trip!
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Anyway, fishing started out pretty steady for the first hour and 1/2 or so. Boated a couple, sat and warmed up hands, got a few bites, lost a couple at the boat, lost a couple not so near the boat.
I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of #7 Rapala Floating Minnow and a 78sp Lucky Craft Pointer both in the shiner pattern. Truth is, I didn't do a great job of comparing them in that the fishing really slowed down for us after the first little while. Caught the first fish, a smallish 10 inch rainbow with the Rapala. Threw the Pointer for a little while and got one bite--big strike--but did not hook up. Then switched to a Power Smelt without any weight. I had stored the smelt in my tackbox and it had gotten bent--it actually worked really well and the bend gave it some nice action as I used it as kind of a jerkbait. I had good success with this setup and caught the biggest fish of the day, a 20 incher--and fat. It was "extra" fun in that after the small trout I switched to my ultralight rod and 4 lb test and he fought like crazy. Maybe you all can help out with I.D. on this fish. It looked like a Cutthroat to me and definitly had cutthroat markins under the jaw, but also had quite a lot of color on the gill plates and sides (though they don't show up as much in this picture). I was wondering if Scofield has hybrids (cutbows). Anyway...
We hooked up a few more times, all pretty small, but then, later in the afternoon, we caught a 17 incher--maybe the prettyist trout I have seen. Beautiful markings (again, had lots of spots, rainbow markings, but also definite cutthroat markings under the jaw). Really pretty back--green and gold in the sun (see pics). Caught that one on a Pointer.
Had a little success with the white tubes and some small spoons. They didn't take dead minnows at all.
All in all the day was pretty slow, but the fish that we did catch were very nice, all were released (hopefully to bite another day). We did notice quite a few dead fish belly up on the bottom in the shallows, no idea why. Thanks for all the help getting ready for the trip!
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